Pierre Bonnard

Estate of the artist

Private Collection, United States

Acquired from the above

London, Royal Academy of Arts, Bonnard Exhibition, 1966, no. 231

São Paulo, Museu de Art de São Paulo, Exposição Pierre Bonnard, 1972, no. 32, illustrated in the catalogue

Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Fondation Maeght, Bonnard dans sa lumière, 1975, no. 54, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Bordeaux, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Hommage à Bonnard, 1986, no. 68

Jean & Henry Dauberville, Bonnard, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, 1920-1939, Paris, 1973, no. 1541, illustrated p. 423

Very good condition. The canvas is lined. Two pin-dot losses in the surf along the bottom and one in the cloud at center-right were noted. Under UV, no evidence of retouching.
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Bonnard had long been inspired by the stunning vistas of the Mediterranean. Having first made a trip to the Midi in 1920, the artist returned to the south of France every year, eventually purchasing a house on top of a hill at Le Cannet, overlooking the bay of Cannes. Much of the artist’s career thereafter was spent depicting the captivating expanse of seaside towns along the Mediterranean including Saint-Tropez, Cannes and Le Cannet. "Going to the south,"  he wrote to his mother, “was very attractive, and indeed, as if I was in a fairy tale from the Thousand and One Nights: the sea, the yellow walls, reflections of light, as bright as the light itself!"  By the 1930s, the compositions of these seascapes became more structured but simplified, and the colors became ever brighter while Bonnard remained faithful to his sensation of nature. He found that the brilliance could come alive, the nuances of color animated by the deep shades of blue of the sea.

Felix Fénéon, who spent time with the painter along the Mediterranean, described how he had watched Bonnard work on his landscape paintings: "With four thumbtacks he had pinned a canvas, lightly tinted with ochre, to the dining room wall. During the first few days he would glance from time to time, as he painted, at a sketch on a piece of paper twice the size of one’s hand. On which he had made notes in oil, pencil and ink of the dominant colors of each little section of the motif. At first I could not identify the subject. Did I have before me a landscape or a seascape? On the eighth day I was astonished to be able to recognize a landscape. From that time on Bonnard no longer referred to a sketch. He would step back and judge the effect of the juxtaposed tones; occasionally he would place a dab of color with his finger, then another next to the first. On about the fifteenth day, I asked him how long he thought it would take him to finish his landscape Bonnard replied: ‘I finished it this morning’” (quoted in J. Rewald, Pierre Bonnard, New York, 1948, p. 51).