Pierre Bonnard

French painter and printmaker who emerged from the Parisian Nabis and developed luminous interiors and landscapes from memory rather than direct observation.

In images

Details

Lived: 1867–1947
Born: 3 October 1867
Birthplace: Fontenay-aux-Roses, France
Birth name: Pierre Eugène Frédéric Bonnard
Died: 23 January 1947 · aged 79
Place of death: Le Cannet, France
Nationality: French
Profession: Painter, printmaker, illustrator, and photographer
Major works: France-Champagne poster (1891), The Dining Room in the Country (1913), The White Tablecloth (1925)
Married: Marthe de Méligny (Maria Boursin) · 1925–1942
Roles: PainterIllustrator

About Pierre Bonnard

Art school and the Nabis

Pierre Bonnard was born just outside Paris and initially studied law. At the Académie Julian he met Paul Sérusier, Maurice Denis, Henri-Gabriel Ibels, and Paul Ranson. The group became the Nabis, painters who treated a picture as a designed surface of color and shape rather than a window onto natural space.

Bonnard also attended the École des Beaux-Arts and worked across painting, posters, prints, book illustration, theater decoration, and photography. Paris street scenes, domestic rooms, and the figure of Marthe de Méligny became recurring subjects.

Painting from memory

Bonnard usually began from notes, sketches, or remembered sensations rather than painting a finished canvas in front of the subject. Interiors open through mirrors, doors, windows, and tabletops, while figures can be partly hidden by the structure of the room.

His long series of bathroom pictures centered on Marthe, whom he married in Paris in 1925. The paintings move between ordinary domestic routines and complex fields of reflected color.

Matisse and the south

Bonnard divided his later years among Paris, Normandy, and Le Cannet in the south of France. Henri Matisse became a close friend; they exhibited together, visited one another, and maintained a regular correspondence from 1925.

Bonnard spent the Second World War at Le Cannet and died there in 1947. Paris remained the place of his training, early exhibitions, publishing work, and formation within the Nabis, even as Mediterranean light transformed his later palette.

Life events

1867
Born in Fontenay-aux-Roses, near Paris.
— Pierre Bonnard — biography and chronology
1888–1889
Studies at the Académie Julian and École des Beaux-Arts and joins the Nabis circle.
— Pierre Bonnard — biography and chronology
1890s
Works in Paris across painting, posters, illustration, theater, and photography.
— Pierre Bonnard — biography and chronology
1925
Marries Marthe de Méligny in Paris and begins regular correspondence with Henri Matisse.
— Pierre Bonnard — biography and chronology
1926
Buys Le Bosquet at Le Cannet while continuing to divide his time with Paris and Normandy.
— Pierre Bonnard — biography and chronology
1947
Dies at Le Cannet.
— Pierre Bonnard — biography and chronology

People they knew

Documented connections — every one carries its source.

Henri Matisse

Painter

Met · 1911

Bonnard and Matisse exhibited together in 1911, became close friends, visited one another in southern France, and maintained regular correspondence from 1925.

— Pierre Bonnard — biography and chronology

Édouard Vuillard

Painter
Printmaker

Collaborated with · 1889

Bonnard and Vuillard met in the Nabis and maintained a close artistic friendship for the rest of Vuillard's life.

— Pierre Bonnard — biography and chronology

Maurice Denis

Painter
Author

Collaborated with · 1889

Bonnard and Denis worked together in the Nabis, the Paris group that treated painting as an ordered surface of color and line.

— Pierre Bonnard — biography and chronology

Pierre Bonnard’s Places

The cataloged places connected to Pierre Bonnard — through the books, and through the documented record.

Places you can enter today appear first, followed by addresses to see from outside and sites that have vanished.

Colour illustration of the Cour Bonaparte at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris

School · Saint-Germain-des-Prés (6th)

Outside only

École des Beaux-Arts

Bonnard was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in 1889, where he met Ker-Xavier Roussel and Édouard Vuillard while taking part in the emerging Nabis circle.

Visit the place