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developed thematically and technically in tandem with
his experiments in painting and drawing. His subjects
were the same as those of his paintings: scenes of do-
mestic interchange, pictures of the his sister’s children
playing in the pools outside Le Grand-Lemps, and
images of the nude and bathing Marthe, Bonnard’s
model, long-time companion and eventual wife. His
most technically adept and visually arresting photo-
graphs seem to answer to the same laws he applied
to painting. According to his late notebooks of 1939,
written long after his abandonment of photography, he
noted that nature and observation should be secondary
to the harmony and overall tone of a pictorial work.
Therefore, it might be said that Bonnard originally
sought with his camera not to scientifi cally record
minute details about people or events for replication
on canvas, but rather apprehend the fl avor of a mood,
a personality, or a moment.
Bonnard never directly quoted his photographs when
painting. Rather, he employed compositional variations
on the frequently domestic subjects evident in his photos.
Sometimes he appropriated a silhouette or form that ap-
pealed to him. It appears that he viewed his photographs
as sketches; both were meant to inspire a mood or capture
a fl eeting movement for later reference. For Bonnard,
who denied any preconceived compositional structure
or arrangement in his paintings, the Kodak he carried to
family gatherings and the candid shots he captured with
it were well suited for his desire to seize and elevate the
transitory and happy accidents of the moment. It was
in his illustrations for the literary works of his peers
that Bonnard seems to have looked directly to, lifted
and modifi ed fi gures from his photographs, particularly
those involving Marthe bathing. A photograph dating
from 1900-01 and titled Marthe Standing in the Sunlight
is ostensibly the model for Bonnard’s lithograph Chloe
Bathing, which appeared in Vollard’s Daphnis and Chloe
of 1902. Other overt examples of Bonnard’s appropria-
tion of photographed fi gures for his literary illustrations
can be found in Paul Verlaine’s Parallèlement.
Bonnard’s interest in photography began to dissipate
in 1905, and he completely abandoned the medium
by 1920. Again, his waning enthusiasm for the photo-
graphic medium seems to have followed the lead of the
same writers and artists who had taken it up in the 1890s.
In his last years, particularly those following Marthe’s
death in January 1942, Bonnard focused all his creative
efforts on painting. Dubbed the ‘celestial reporter’ by
artist André Lhote for his ability to imbue the mundane
with the sublime, Pierre Bonnard revealed his unique
symbolist-inspired vision in photographs by bringing his
plastic and painterly approach to a largely mechanical,
often unforgivingly literal medium.
Savannah SchrollBiography
Bonnard was born at Fontenay-aux-Roses, near Paris
on 3 October 1867 to the head of a department in the
War Ministry and an Alsatian mother. He spent most
of his time at the family estate, Le Grand-Lemps, near
Côte Saint-André. Between 1886 and 1887, he studied
law while also attending the Académie Julian, where he
met Paul Sérusier, Maurice Denis, Henri-Gabriel Ibels,
and Paul Ranson. A year later, he enrolled at the Ecole
des Beaux-Arts, where he encountered Ker-Xavier
Roussel and Edouard Vuillard. After a brief period of
military service, he rented a studio in Rue Le Chapelais
in the Batignolles district and, with Sérusier, organizes
the Nabis. In 1889, while still reluctantly pursuing a
civil service career, Bonnard submitted a painting that
was rejected for the Prix de Rome. He did, however,
succeed in selling a poster for “France-Champagne,”
which led him to embark in earnest on a painting career.
He also became involved at this time with the Nabis, a
group of artists thus dubbed by the poet Henri Cazalis,
lead by Paul Sérusier, took its name from the Hebrew
word for ‘prophet.’ In the early 1890s, Bonnard began
experimenting with a portable Kodak camera, then
popular with the middle class. He exhibited at the Salon
des Indépendents in 1892 and 1893. In 1896, he col-
laborated with his brother-in-law, the musician Claude
Terrasse, and Paul Sérusier to produce sets and music
for Alfred Jarry’s Ubu-Roi. Bonnard also had his fi rst
solo show of paintings, posters and lithographs at Du-
rand-Ruel and illustrates Peter Nansen’s novel Marie.
In 1898, Bonnard takes up photography more seriously,
carrying his Kodak camera with him to many family
gatherings at Le Grand-Lemps. Between 1900 and
1908, he created lithographic illustrations for written
works published by Vollard, namely Verlaine’s Paral-
lèlement, Vollard’s Daphnis and Chloe, and Octave
Mirbeau’s 628 E8. Bonnard participated in the Salon
d’Automne in 1913. 1924 sees a large retrospective of
his work at Druet’s, and in 1925, he married his long
time companion Maria Boursin, who called herself
Marthe de Méligny and whom Bonnard met in the
early 1890s. In 1926 he was appointed to the Carn-
egie International jury and briefl y visited the United
States. In 1927 Octave Mirbeau’s Dingo, containing
55 etchings by Bonnard was published. The follow-
ing year, he exhibited brightly hued painting at New
York’s De Hauck Gallery. Kunsthaus Zurich mounted
a large exhibition of Bonnard’s and Vuillard’s works
in 1932, and in 1933, forty of his portraits appeared
at the Galerie Braun. In 1934, he has an exhibition
in New York’s Wildenstein Gallery. In 1936 he wins
second prize at the Carnegie International. Bonnard
died at his villa, Le Bosquet, in Le Cannet, France on
23 January 1947.