Pierre Bonnard

Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the artist in 1910)

Alfred & Mary Rome, Grenoble (acquired from the above on December 27, 1911 and probably until 1968)

Stephen Higgons, Paris (sold: Sotheby's, Tokyo, October 3, 1969, lot 371)

Private Collection, United States (sold: Sotheby’s, New York, November 11, 1988, lot 26)

Private Collection, United States (acquired at the above sale and sold: Christie’s, New York, November 11, 1992, lot 52)

Acquired at the above sale

Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune & Cie, Oeuvres récentes 1910 & 1911 de Bonnard: panneaux décoratifs et tableaux, 1911, no. 13

Gustave Coquiot, Bonnard, Paris, 1922, illustrated p. 51

Jean & Henry Dauberville, Bonnard, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint 1906-1919, Paris, 1968, vol. II, no. 573, illustrated p. 174

Les Fraises demonstrates Pierre Bonnard’s talent for reconfiguring the natural world at its finest. The glistening bowl of strawberries and vibrant, sun dappled background of the landscape exemplify the artist’s application of the intimisme of his earlier Nabis pictures with the vibrant coloration that defined the most successful compositions from his mature production. Still-lifes occupied a large part of the artist's oeuvre over the course of his career, but as he developed his style, his approach to these compositions became much more experimental. A tablescape still life, the focal point of the scene, is positioned in the middle-distance, surrounded by washes of verdant green paint that contrast with the precise detailing of the tablecloth, pitcher and bowls of fruit.

Les Fraises exemplifies Bonnard’s fascination with light and color. As James Elliott observed: "Bonnard was essentially a colorist. He devoted his main creative energies to wedding his sensations of color from nature to those from paint itself – sensations which he said thrilled and even bewildered him. Perceiving color with a highly developed sensitivity, he discovered new and unfamiliar effects from which he selected carefully, yet broadly and audaciously…Whether in narrow range or multitudinous variety, the colors move across the surface of his paintings in constantly shifting interplay, lending an extraordinary fascination to common subjects. Familiar sights – the pervading greenness of a landscape, the intensification of color in objects on a lightly overcast day – are given vivid life" (J. Elliott in Bonnard and His Environment (exhibition catalogue), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1964, p. 25).