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Long Live Painting! PRESTEL Munich · London · New York MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 2-3 16.08.17 11:37 Long Live Painting! PRESTEL Munich · London · New York MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 2-3 16.08.17 11:37 Contents 8 Greetings PLATES 13 Foreword 81 INTERIOR Beate Söntgen ESSAYS 105 STILL LIFE Iris Hasler 19 MATISSE – BONNARD. “Long Live Painting!” Felix Krämer 131 LANDSCAPE/NATURE Daniel Zamani 43 FINDING THE POSE 153 WOMEN/THE NUDE Elena Schroll The Models of Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse Dita Amory 183 WORKS ON PAPER Jenny Graser 55 BETWEEN TRADITION AND INNOVATION APPENDIX Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard in the Mirror of the 1940s Daniel Zamani 219 Chronology 231 List of Exhibited Works 69 WITH BONNARD AND MATISSE ON THE CÔTE D’AZUR 236 Selected Bibliography The Collector Couple Hahnloser-Bühler and Their Artist Friends 238 Colophon Margrit Hahnloser-Ingold 240 Photo Credits and Artists’ Rights MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 6-7 16.08.17 11:37 Contents 8 Greetings PLATES 13 Foreword 81 INTERIOR Beate Söntgen ESSAYS 105 STILL LIFE Iris Hasler 19 MATISSE – BONNARD. “Long Live Painting!” Felix Krämer 131 LANDSCAPE/NATURE Daniel Zamani 43 FINDING THE POSE 153 WOMEN/THE NUDE Elena Schroll The Models of Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse Dita Amory 183 WORKS ON PAPER Jenny Graser 55 BETWEEN TRADITION AND INNOVATION APPENDIX Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard in the Mirror of the 1940s Daniel Zamani 219 Chronology 231 List of Exhibited Works 69 WITH BONNARD AND MATISSE ON THE CÔTE D’AZUR 236 Selected Bibliography The Collector Couple Hahnloser-Bühler and Their Artist Friends 238 Colophon Margrit Hahnloser-Ingold 240 Photo Credits and Artists’ Rights MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 6-7 16.08.17 11:37 Matisse – Bonnard “Long Live Painting!” FELIX KRÄMER “Long live painting!” This was the programmatic ex- found its analogy in their works, which they contem- clamation with which Henri Matisse greeted his friend plated and discussed together; and from these encounters Pierre Bonnard on 13 August 1925 (fi gs. 1 and 2 ).1 The few each drew the affi rmation needed to unwaveringly con- words on a postcard from Amsterdam were the beginning tinue along his own path. of a correspondence between the artist colleagues Pierre Bonnard was born in 1867 in Fonte- comprising 62 letters which lasted until 1946 and gave nay-aux-Roses near Paris. Henri Matisse came into the expression to their mutual esteem. The correspondence world two years later, in 1869, in Le Cateau-Cambrésis in was initially sporadic but intensifi ed in the 1930s. Its Northern France. As leading exponents of French nature was characterized by everyday life: accounts of the Modernism they would fi rst meet each other at the weather, their travels or illnesses. They knew each other beginning of the twentieth century. At this point in time well, the tone they used with one another was familiar, Bonnard could already look back upon a long artistic the form of address “My dear Matisse”, “My dear career. At his parents’ wish he had initially studied law at Bonnard” or “My dear friend”. Only a few places in their the Sorbonne in Paris before commencing studies at the letters contain passages about art, but in these their Académie Julian. Bonnard had enjoyed great success as mutual understanding and admiration for each other’s early as 1891 with his poster design for the brand work emerge all the more clearly. Their friendship of over “France-Champagne” (fi g. 3) and together with fellow 40 years was based on a familiarity that knew neither students founded an artist group that – half in jest and self-interest nor competitiveness, characterized instead half seriously – called itself the “Nabis”, derived from by sympathy and interest in the other’s welfare. In add- “Nebiim”, Hebrew for “prophets”. The group also in- ition to the personal level, which clearly comes to the fore cluded Édouard Vuillard and Félix Vallotton, with whom in the letters, at least equally important from an art Bonnard remained close friends even after the dissol- historical perspective is what is not found in the cor- ution of the Nabis at the end of the 1890s. Even though respondence. During the phases of their lives in which the members met regularly and exhibited together, they Matisse and Bonnard saw each other regularly they nonetheless did not form a collective “with solidly de- Figs and Postcard from Henri Matisse to Pierre Bonnard August Private collection scarcely wrote to each other. The communication then lineated contours” that “was characterized by a stylistic MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 18-19 16.08.17 11:37 Matisse – Bonnard “Long Live Painting!” FELIX KRÄMER “Long live painting!” This was the programmatic ex- found its analogy in their works, which they contem- clamation with which Henri Matisse greeted his friend plated and discussed together; and from these encounters Pierre Bonnard on 13 August 1925 (fi gs. 1 and 2 ).1 The few each drew the affi rmation needed to unwaveringly con- words on a postcard from Amsterdam were the beginning tinue along his own path. of a correspondence between the artist colleagues Pierre Bonnard was born in 1867 in Fonte- comprising 62 letters which lasted until 1946 and gave nay-aux-Roses near Paris. Henri Matisse came into the expression to their mutual esteem. The correspondence world two years later, in 1869, in Le Cateau-Cambrésis in was initially sporadic but intensifi ed in the 1930s. Its Northern France. As leading exponents of French nature was characterized by everyday life: accounts of the Modernism they would fi rst meet each other at the weather, their travels or illnesses. They knew each other beginning of the twentieth century. At this point in time well, the tone they used with one another was familiar, Bonnard could already look back upon a long artistic the form of address “My dear Matisse”, “My dear career. At his parents’ wish he had initially studied law at Bonnard” or “My dear friend”. Only a few places in their the Sorbonne in Paris before commencing studies at the letters contain passages about art, but in these their Académie Julian. Bonnard had enjoyed great success as mutual understanding and admiration for each other’s early as 1891 with his poster design for the brand work emerge all the more clearly. Their friendship of over “France-Champagne” (fi g. 3) and together with fellow 40 years was based on a familiarity that knew neither students founded an artist group that – half in jest and self-interest nor competitiveness, characterized instead half seriously – called itself the “Nabis”, derived from by sympathy and interest in the other’s welfare. In add- “Nebiim”, Hebrew for “prophets”. The group also in- ition to the personal level, which clearly comes to the fore cluded Édouard Vuillard and Félix Vallotton, with whom in the letters, at least equally important from an art Bonnard remained close friends even after the dissol- historical perspective is what is not found in the cor- ution of the Nabis at the end of the 1890s. Even though respondence. During the phases of their lives in which the members met regularly and exhibited together, they Matisse and Bonnard saw each other regularly they nonetheless did not form a collective “with solidly de- Figs and Postcard from Henri Matisse to Pierre Bonnard August Private collection scarcely wrote to each other. The communication then lineated contours” that “was characterized by a stylistic MB_Es_lebe_die_Malerei_001_240.indd 18-19 16.08.17 11:37 consistency”.2 But as a group they were convinced that art positions, as a pioneer who already anticipated much should embrace all aspects of life and be an expression of later twentieth-century developments. This distorted something unseen. Works from Bonnard’s Nabi period view may well have arisen from the fact that Bonnard had are characterized by a free play of perspectives and a already enjoyed success as a young artist whereas markedly fl at handling of paint (see fi g. 4 ). Matisse’s career began only after the turn of the century, Like Bonnard, Matisse also initially aspired to but then developed so rapidly that after the First World a career as a lawyer and worked as a paralegal in War he was already one of the best-known artists inter- Saint-Quentin. Concurrently he also took private art nationally. Bonnard added fuel to this idea by referring to courses. In 1891 Matisse decided in favour of a life as an himself, in an oft-quoted statement, as “the last of the artist and went to Paris. But his application to the École Impressionists”.5 Even today many museums classify the des Beaux-Arts was rejected. He was only admitted on two artists in diff erent epochs. It is thus unsurprising that becoming a student of the symbolist painter Gustave there are only very few collectors who are equally en- Moreau. For many years Matisse sold scarcely any works thusiastic about Bonnard and Matisse – despite the close and had to support his family with odd jobs. For a meagre connection between their oeuvres. hourly wage, he painted the Grand Palais for the Paris While at fi rst the two artists met only occa- World Exhibition of 1900 with a kilometres-long frieze of sionally their friendship intensifi ed through the years. laurel garlands.3 Until after the turn of the century They met regularly in the studio and discussed their Matisse’s career was dominated by uncertainty and works. When they transferred their main residences from experimentation with various styles. He achieved his the art metropolis of Paris to the French Riviera, their breakthrough only in 1905 with Woman with a Hat, a por- artistic exchange increased even more.