Past Exhibition

Édouard Vuillard

A screen made up of five tall, rectangular panels, set side by side and each surrounded by a gold frame, is painted as a single scene showing a tree-lined sidewalk curving around a park in a city. The scene is loosely painted with short, rounded brushstrokes. The top two-thirds to three-quarters of most of the panels are filled with the lime and olive-green leaves of the trees that line the sidewalk and park. In the leftmost panel, the sidewalk and road lead back to a row of caramel-brown building façades. The sidewalk is pale taupe, and the street is painted with dashes of the same taupe against terracotta brown, suggesting cobblestones. Spindly trees are spaced in a row along the sidewalk in round holes covered with smoke-gray metal grates. A black fence, painted with thin, sometimes broken black lines encloses the park beyond, which has a path around plantings and the vivid green lawn. Touches of pink on a sage-green tree to our left in the park suggest flowers. A gray statue on a high plinth is partially lost in the break between the two rightmost panels. Men, women, and children, painted with a few strokes of black, gray, or marine or periwinkle blue, walk along the sidewalk and the garden path, or sit at the base of the fence or on benches spaced along the sidewalk. The women seem to wear long dresses and the men dark clothing and hats. Two carriages are pulled up on the street near a lamp post alongside the sidewalk near the lower left. In the leftmost panel, horse-drawn carriages move along the road leading back to the buildings, and more people seem to be gathered on the sidewalk near the left edge of the panel in the distance. The artist signed the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “E. Vuillard.” The panels of the screen have been set up so the panels rest on a platform or on the floor in a shallow zig-zag pattern, in a room with an off white wall and bisque-brown molding along the floor.
Edouard Vuillard, Place Vintimille, 1911, five-panel screen, distemper on paper laid down on canvas, Gift of Enid A. Haupt, 1998.47.1-5

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    West Building, Main Floor, Galleries 72, 73, 74, 77 through 81, and 83
A screen made up of five tall, rectangular panels, set side by side and each surrounded by a gold frame, is painted as a single scene showing a tree-lined sidewalk curving around a park in a city. The scene is loosely painted with short, rounded brushstrokes. The top two-thirds to three-quarters of most of the panels are filled with the lime and olive-green leaves of the trees that line the sidewalk and park. In the leftmost panel, the sidewalk and road lead back to a row of caramel-brown building façades. The sidewalk is pale taupe, and the street is painted with dashes of the same taupe against terracotta brown, suggesting cobblestones. Spindly trees are spaced in a row along the sidewalk in round holes covered with smoke-gray metal grates. A black fence, painted with thin, sometimes broken black lines encloses the park beyond, which has a path around plantings and the vivid green lawn. Touches of pink on a sage-green tree to our left in the park suggest flowers. A gray statue on a high plinth is partially lost in the break between the two rightmost panels. Men, women, and children, painted with a few strokes of black, gray, or marine or periwinkle blue, walk along the sidewalk and the garden path, or sit at the base of the fence or on benches spaced along the sidewalk. The women seem to wear long dresses and the men dark clothing and hats. Two carriages are pulled up on the street near a lamp post alongside the sidewalk near the lower left. In the leftmost panel, horse-drawn carriages move along the road leading back to the buildings, and more people seem to be gathered on the sidewalk near the left edge of the panel in the distance. The artist signed the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “E. Vuillard.” The panels of the screen have been set up so the panels rest on a platform or on the floor in a shallow zig-zag pattern, in a room with an off white wall and bisque-brown molding along the floor.
Edouard Vuillard, Place Vintimille, 1911, five-panel screen, distemper on paper laid down on canvas, Gift of Enid A. Haupt, 1998.47.1-5

Overview: This exhibition presented 233 objects spanning the career of Parisian artist Édouard Vuillard (1868–1940). Included were paintings, folding screens, theater programs, prints, drawings, photographs, and ceramics. A series of decorative panels, The Public Gardens, 1894, were shown together for the first time since 1906. Some of the works in the exhibition had never before been on public display.

A 30-minute film entitled Édouard Vuillard, produced by the National Gallery, was shown in the East Building large and small auditoriums. An abbreviated version of the film was shown continuously in the exhibition. An audio tour was narrated by National Gallery of Art Director Earl A. Powell III, with commentary by Kimberly Jones, assistant curator of French paintings at the National Gallery, and Belinda Thomson, independent scholar, Edinburgh, Scotland. Related activities included a public symposium with lectures and a panel discussion by Vuillard scholars, a series of family workshops, and a teacher workshop. A series of films by Vuillard's contemporary, Sacha Guitry, were shown in conjunction with the exhibition.

Organization: The exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Réunion des musées nationaux/Musée d'Orsay, Paris, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London. The exhibition curator was Guy Cogeval, chief curator, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Kimberly Jones was the coordinating curator at the National Gallery of Art.

Sponsor: The exhibition was made possible by Airbus. It was supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. The film was made possible by HRH Foundation.

Attendance: 142,191

Catalog: Édouard Vuillard, by Guy Cogeval et al. Montreal, Quebec: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2003.

Brochure: Édouard Vuillard, by Lynn Kellmanson Matheny. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2003.

Édouard Vuillard Family Guide. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2003.

Other Venues:

  • Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 05/15/2003–08/24/2003
  • Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 09/23/2003–01/04/2004
  • Royal Academy of Arts, London, 01/31/2004–04/18/2004

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