Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) - Young Woman With A Turban (lucienne Dupuy De Frenelle), Circa 1918

Provenance: 
Charles Terrasse Collection
Estate of Françoise Terrasse

Certificate of authenticity issued by Mr. Pierre Vernon.

Pierre Bonnard – Painting Silent Intimacy

Pierre Bonnard was born in 1867 in Fontenay-aux-Roses. He studied law and earned his bachelor’s degree in 1888. At the same time, he nurtured a deep passion for painting. He enrolled at the Académie Julian and later entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Although he was admitted to the bar, he chose to devote himself entirely to art in the early 1890s. He then shared a studio on Rue Pigalle with Maurice Denis and Édouard Vuillard. He joined the Nabis group, and his taste for Japanese aesthetics earned him the nickname “the very Japanese Nabi.”
In 1893, he exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants and met Marthe, who would become his lifelong partner and the almost exclusive model for his nudes until her death. Marthe’s body, her presence, and her intimacy became the central theme of his entire body of work. Bonnard also worked on illustration projects and posters, and participated in group exhibitions, notably at Ambroise Vollard’s gallery in 1897. He continued to socialize with Vuillard, as well as with Thadée and Misia Natanson, the architect Albert Laprade, and the composer Maurice Ravel, and maintained a regular correspondence with Maurice Denis.

In the summer of 1909, Bonnard stayed in Saint-Tropez at the invitation of Henri Manguin. He returned there in 1911 with Paul Signac and painted the triptych Méditerranée. From that time on, he made regular trips to the French Riviera: Cannes, Antibes, and then Le Cannet, where he bought a villa in 1926, a year after marrying Marthe. The couple then divided their time between Paris (Boulevard des Batignolles) and this home in the South, where the artist found an inexhaustible source of light and comfort.
In 1928, a major solo exhibition was dedicated to him in New York, followed by another at the Wildenstein Gallery. In 1936, Bonnard, alongside Vuillard and Roussel, was commissioned to design the decor for the foyer of the Théâtre du Palais de Chaillot. In 1942, Marthe died in the midst of World War II. Deeply affected by her death and the events of the war, Bonnard went through a period of isolation, during which his inspiration waned.
He died in Le Cannet in January 1947. A Pierre Bonnard Museum was inaugurated there in 2011. In 2015, the Musée d’Orsay organized a major retrospective exhibition titled Pierre Bonnard: Painting Arcadia, which was acclaimed by both the public and critics.

Discover more works by this artist on the gallery’s website: https://www.galeriepentcheff.fr/fr/peintre-pierre-bonnard