Biographies

Pierre Bonnard (1867 – 1947)

He was born in Fontenay-aux-Roses, France. In Paris for legal training in 1887, he began studying art at the Académie Julian and entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1888. There he made the friends, including Edouard Vuillard, who founded the group known as the Nabis (Hebrew for “prophets”). Bonnard exhibited with the Nabis until they disbanded in 1900. He worked in a variety of media; for example, he frequently made posters and illustrations for La Revue blanche, and in 1895 he designed a stained-glass window for Louis Comfort Tiffany. The Nabis emphasized the decorative aspect of visual art, drawing upon the work of the symbolists and the fauves and leading toward art nouveau.