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by a cast of distinguished writers,new interviews with those who knew Bonnard or whose work has been influenced by him,unpublished archival photographs and diary drawings, and full-colour reproductions of 100 paintings, this book provides a major reassessment of the artist's contribution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.

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 Music 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by a cast of distinguished writers,new interviews with those who knew Bonnard or whose work has been influenced by him,unpublished archival photographs and diary drawings, and full-colour reproductions of 100 paintings, this book provides a major reassessment of the artist's contribution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.

Suzanne Page

Introduction the work of art, suspending time

ESSAYS

Yve-Alain Bois

Bonnard's "passivity"

Sarah Whitfield

A question of belonging

 Georges Roque

Surface, its colour and its "laws"

Jacqueline Munck

Bonnard, by default

Francois Michaud

"Drawing with a light hand, shapes of shadows"

Michel Frizot

Pierre's stupefaction: the window of photography

CATA LO G U E

  Pages 32-47 and pages 91-251

RECOLLECTIONS, INTERVIEWS

- Henri Cartier-Bresson

 Dina Vierny

- Karel Appel

- John M. Armleder

- Peter Doig

- Giuseppe Penone

MORE ABOUT ...

Misia SeA's dining room, by Gloria Groom

The Morozov commission, by Albert Kostenevich

Bonnard's "Bathers", by Linda Nochlin

Bonnard and La Revue blanche, by Yves Kobry

Bonnard "du cote de chez Proust', by Michel Makarius

Deferrals/Endings, by Deepak Ananth

CHRONOLOGY

Pierre Bonnard with his Swiss friends, Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser,

by Margrit Hahnloser-lngold

Duncan Phillips and Pierre Bonnard,

by Elizabeth Hutton Turner

APPENDICES

- Technical notes

- Selective bibliography

- Major exhibitions