Bonnard. The Work of Art. Suspending Time

Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) is among the great artists whose work undoubtedly marked the twentieth century. This book, which accompanies a major retrospective of the artist´s work at the Musee d´art moderne de la ville de Paris, shows how Bonnard´s contribution to a ´modern´ conception of painting makes him a decisive figure in the history of twentieth-century art. Starting from the turn of the century, and from the change that moment represented in Bonnard´s work, the book looks at some of the recurrent themes in the artist´s work - the nude, landscapes, terraces and windows, and self-portraits - and reveals an ongoing re-invention of his vision, drawing from his Nabi experience and leading the painter to the very brink of abstraction. Including essays by a cast of distinguished writers, new interviews with those who knew Bonnard or whose work has been influenced by him, unpublished archival photographs and diary drawings, and full-colour reproductions of 100 paintings, this book provides a major reassessment of the artist´s contribution to the history of modernism, as well as a beautifully produced record of his life and work.
Contents: Prefaces; Acknowledgements; Bonnard´s ´passivity´,Yves-Alain Bois; The problem of belonging, Sarah Whitfield; Surface, its colour and its ´laws´, Georges Roque; Bonnard, by default, Jacqueline Munck; ´Dessin la main legere, formes de l´ombre´, Francois Michaud; Pierre in sheer astonishment: The emergence of photography, Michel Frizot; Catalogue, with inserts by Gloria Groom (Series of decorative panels known as ´Misia Sert´s dining room´), Albert Kostenevich (Works commissioned by Ivan Morozov), Linda Nochlin (Bonnard´s ´baths´), Yves Kobry (The ´Revue Blanche´), Michel Makarius (Bonnard and Proust) and Deepak Ananth (A different ending); Interviews with Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dina Vierny, Karel Appel, John Michael Armleder, Peter Doig and Giuseppe Penone; Diary Drawings; Chronology, with inserts by Margrit Hahnloser-Ingold (Bonnard and his Swiss friends Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser) and Elisabeth Hutton Turner (Duncan Phillips and Pierre Bonnard); Technical Data; Bibliography; List of Exhibitions.