February 1990: EXHIBITION: The Intimate Interiors of Édouard Vuillard
PRESS PREVIEW: Thursday, May 17, 1990, 10:00 a.m. to noon
EXHIBITION DATES: May 18 - July 30, 1990
SPONSOR: This exhibition is made possible at The Brooklyn Museum by a generous grant from the Cantor Fitzgerald Foundation. It was also funded by Mr. and Mrs. Meredith J. Long, Fayez Sarofim & Company, Continental Airlines, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
CONTENT: The first major exhibition to examine in detail the early and most important works of the Post-Impressionist master Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940). Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the artist’s death, the exhibition presents more than 100 paintings and works on paper from the years 1890 to 1900, the decade of Vuillard’s greatest artistic achievement. Assembled here are the paintings of interiors, small in scale but rich in psychological complexity, for which Vuillard is most famous. Because he explored a limited range of subject matter and painted the same themes repeatedly, most of his interior views represent the apartments, furnishings[,] and people with whom he was closest. Vuillard concentrates in this decade on four themes which are the focus of this exhibition: self-portraits, seamstresses, scenes of family life, and homages to Misia Natanson, a close friend whose Paris salon attracted many of the day’s prominent artists, poets, and critics.
PURPOSE: The Intimate Interiors of Édouard Vuillard is the first major museum exhibition since 1971 to focus exclusively on the work of Vuillard and is the first exhibition in New York since 1954 to feature the paintings of this great Post-Impressionist artist. Because almost all of the artist’s paintings are in private collections, there are Vuillard masterpieces that have rarely, if ever, been seen by the public. This exhibition offers a view of 110 of his treasures and incorporates new information about the artist from family archives.
ORGANIZATION: Originating at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the exhibition was organized by Elizabeth Easton, Assistant Curator of European Painting and Sculpture at The Brooklyn Museum with George Shakelford, Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
CATALOGUE: The fully illustrated catalogue, authored by Elizabeth Easton, is the first in-depth publication on Vuillard in 20 years, as well as the first that draws on material from the artist’s journals unavailable until 1980. It is published by the Smithsonian Institution Press, in association with The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. 144 pages: 65 color plates and 30 black-and-white illustrations ($24.95 softcover).
PUBLIC PROGRAMS: A symposium and a series of gallery talks have been organized by the Museum’s Department of Public Programs. They have been made possible by the generosity of the Florence J. Gould Foundation and The Overbook Foundation.
ACCOMPANYING EXHIBITIONS: In conjunction with Édouard Vuillard, The Brooklyn Museum has organized an exhibition of approximately 70 prints by artists of the Nabis movement of which Édouard Vuillard was a founding member. Entitled Prints by the Nabis: Vuillard and His Contemporaries, the exhibition will open June 1 in the Prints and Drawings Galleries, located on the second floor, and remain on view through September 5, 1990. Included will be works by Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Paul Serusier, and Vuillard, among others.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1989 - 1994. 01-03/1990, 032-33.
February 1990: The first major exhibition to concentrate exclusively on the early and most important works of Post-Impressionist master Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) will go on view at The Brooklyn Museum May 18, 1990. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the artist’s death, The Intimate Interiors of Edouard Vuillard features Vuillard masterpieces in private collections that have rarely, if ever, been seen by the public and is the first exhibition to incorporate new information about the artist from his personal journals, which have been available for study only since 1980. The exhibition will remain on view in the Robert E. Blum Gallery, located on the first floor, through July 30.
The exhibition presents more than 100 paintings and works on paper from the years 1890 to 1900, the decade of Vuillard’s greatest artistic achievement. In this decade Vuillard concentrates on four themes which are the focus of this exhibition: self-portraits, seamstresses, scenes of family life, and homages to his friend Misia Natanson in her fashionable Paris salon. Though small in scale, these intimate, jewel-like paintings are rich in psychological complexity and illuminate the social, economic, intellectual, and physical environment from which the artist’s paintings evolved.
Vuillard was a founding member of the Nabis, a group of young artists working in the 1890s and an important offshoot of the French Symbolists. Unlike the visionary and exotic themes painted by the Symbolists though, the subjects Vuillard preferred to paint are the quotidian, scenes like the ones featured in this exhibition. He used unnatural color, boldly exaggerated shapes, and distorted space to emphasize that his paintings were products of his feelings and of his imagination.
The Intimate Interiors of Edouard Vuillard is made possible at The Brooklyn Museum by a generous grant from the Cantor Fitzgerald Foundation. It was also funded by Mr. and Mrs. Meredith J. Long, Fayez Sarofim & Company, Continental Airlines, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Originating at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the exhibition was organized by Elizabeth Easton, Assistant Curator of European Painting and Sculpture at The Brooklyn Museum, with George Shakelford, Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. A fully illustrated catalogue, authored by Elizabeth Easton, will accompany the exhibition. It is the first in-depth publication on Vuillard in 20 years, as well as the first that draws on material from the artist’s journals. The catalogue is published by the Smithsonian Institution Press, in association with The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (144 pages: 65 color plates and 30 black-and-white illustrations; $24.95 softcover).
A symposium is scheduled for May 18, and a series of gallery talks have been organized by the Museum’s Department of Public Programs. They have been made possible by the generosity of The Florence J. Gould Foundation and The Overb[r]ook Foundation. In conjunction with the exhibition The Brooklyn Museum has organized an exhibition of approximately 70 prints by artist of the Nabis movement. Entitled Prints by the Nabis: Vuillard and His Contemporaries, the exhibition will open June 1 in the Prints and Drawings Galleries, located on the second floor, and remain on view through September 5, 1990. Included will be works by Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Paul Serusier, and Vuillard, among others.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1989 - 1994. 01-03/1990, 041-43.
March 1990: Prints by the Nabis: Vuillard and His Contemporaries, an exhibition of approximately 80 prints drawn from The Brooklyn Museum’s permanent collection, will open June 1 at the Museum and remain on view through September 17, 1990, in the Prints and Drawings Galleries, located on the second floor. It complements the Museum’s major exhibition, The Intimate Interiors of Edouard Vuillard (May 18 - July 30, 1990), which concentrates on the early and most important works of Post-Impressionist master Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940).
Prints by the Nabis highlights the works of a group of young French artists including Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Félix Vallotton, and Ker-Xavier Roussel, who came together in 1899 under the inspiration of Paul Gauguin and Symbolist theory. They called themselves the Nabis, a Hebrew word for “prophet,” and experimented with a variety of printmaking techniques. The exhibition includes single prints, illustrated books, posters, and portfolios, displaying the artists’ broad application of printmaking in their examination of everyday life.
The exhibition, organized by Karyn Zieve, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings, is made possible by the generous support of Dr. Sheldon Weinig.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1989 - 1994. 01-03/1990, 044.
May 1990: Date: Thursday, May 17, 1990
Time: 10:00 a.m.-noon
Exhibition Dates: May 18-July 30, 1990
Transportation: Special motorcoach service will transport members of the press to The Brooklyn Museum, departing from the front of the Plaza Hotel promptly at 9:00 a.m. Return service will leave the Museum for the Plaza at noon. To reserve seating on the bus, please phone (718) 638-5000, ext. 330.
This is the first major exhibition to concentrate exclusively on the early and most important works of Post-Impressionist master Edouard Vuillard and to incorporate new information about the artist from his personal journals, sealed at his request for 40 years following his death in 1940. Many of the works shown are in private collections and are rarely, if ever, on public view. The exhibition is made possible at The Brooklyn Museum by a generous grant from the Cantor Fitzgerald Foundation.
A major traveling exhibition, The Intimate Interiors of Edouard Vuillard originated at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. It was guest curated by Elizabeth Easton, one of the first to be granted access to the Vuillard journals[,] which she drew upon in mounting the exhibition and in authoring the accompanying catalogue. She worked with George Shackelford, Curator of European Painting at MFA, Houston. Now an Assistant Curator at The Brooklyn Museum, Ms. Easton has reinstalled the exhibition and expanded it with the addition of some 40 works on paper and six paintings.
Educational programs in conjunction with the exhibition, and additional support, are made possible by the generosity of The Florence J. Gould Foundation, The Overbrook Foundation, and William Kelly Simpson. The exhibition was organized by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, with the support of Mr. and Mrs. Meredith J. Long, Fayez Sarofim & Company, Continental Airlines, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Refreshments will be served
R.S.V.P. (718) 638-5000, ext. 330
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1989 - 1994. 04-06/1990, 093.
