Edouard Vuillard—A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940

"A catalogue to accompany an exhibition at the Jewish Museum, New York, of work by Edouard Vuillard. Although Vuillard (1868-1940) is a major painter of the twentieth century, beloved by connoisseurs, the range of his oeuvre remained little known to the wider public until quite recently. He worked during the innovative period of modern art that spans Impressionism, Cubism, Expressionism, and abstraction but remained committed to the techniques and subjects of his youth. For this he is often regarded as somewhat conservative and his experiments are rarely recognized, yet his use of color and brushwork is radical and his play of realist and abstract pictorial space is both subtle and complex. After his death Vuillard was overlooked. The private journals towhich he confided many pages of reflection throughout his life remained sealed until the early 1980s. Since then, occasional exhibitions and books began to explore his oeuvre in depth. The present volume offers the pleasure of seeing afresh an outstanding painter while exploring aspects of art and patronage in the first half of the twentieth century. Context is important for a full appreciation of Vuillard's achievement: the inspiration and support he received from his patrons and collectors, many of whom were Jewish, remain integral to his oeuvre.3"--

Stephen Brown is assistant curator at The Jewish Museum, New York. Richard R. Brettell is the Margaret McDermott Distinguished Chair, Art and Aesthetics, University of Texas, Dallas, and director of its Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Museums. His books include French 19th-Century Painting in the Norton Simon Museum (Yale), and Monet in Normandy (Yale).