Bonnard, the Late Paintings

Abstract

An important exhibition of twentieth-century paintings by Pierre Bonnard, many not previously seen in the United States, opened in early 1984 at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and, with some changes, moved first to the Phillips Gallery, Washington, D.C., then to the Dallas Museum of Art. The quality of the work in this exhibition was high, including paintings of considerable historical interest and masterworks such as the Metropolitan's Décor à Vernon (D.9907), the Centre Georges Pompidou's L'Atelier au mimosa (D.1677), two late, great nudes in the bath from the Musée du Petit Palais, Paris, and the Carnegie Institute's Museum of Art (D. 1558, D.1687), La Palme from The Phillips Collection (D.1342), and Promenade en mer from a private Swiss collection. The Washington exhibition, which I saw, was stunning, and, together with the catalogue, should provoke a new era in Bonnard studies.