Édouard Vuillard | |
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Self-portrait, 1889, oil on canvas
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Born |
Cuiseaux, Saône-et-Loire, France |
11 November 1868
Died | 21 June 1940 La Baule, Loire-Atlantique, France |
(aged 71)
Nationality | French |
Known for | Painting, printmaking |
Jean-Édouard Vuillard (French: [vɥijaʁ]; 11 November 1868 – 21 June 1940) was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Nabis.
Jean-Édouard Vuillard, the son of a retired captain, spent his youth at Cuiseaux (Saône-et-Loire); in 1878 his family moved to Paris in modest circumstances. After his father's death in 1884, Vuillard received a scholarship to continue his education. In the Lycée Condorcet Vuillard met Ker Xavier Roussel (also a future painter and Vuillard's future brother in law), Maurice Denis, musician Pierre Hermant, writer Pierre Véber, and Lugné-Poe.
In 1885, Vuillard left the Lycée Condorcet. On the advice of his closest friend, Roussel, he refused a military career and joined Roussel at the studio of painter Diogène Maillart. There, Roussel and Vuillard received the rudiments of artistic training. From 1886 to 1888, he studied at the Académie Julian. In 1887, after three unsuccessful attempts, Vuillard passed the entrance examination for the École des Beaux-Arts. Vuillard kept a private journal from 1888–1905 and later from 1907–40.
By 1890, the year in which Vuillard met Pierre Bonnard and Paul Sérusier, he had joined the Nabis, a group of art students inspired by the synthetism of Gauguin. He contributed to their exhibitions at the Gallery of Le Barc de Boutteville, and later shared a studio with fellow Nabis Bonnard and Maurice Denis. In the early 1890s, he worked for the Théâtre de l'Œuvre of Lugné-Poe designing settings and programs.