Beschreibung:

Artist: Jean Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940) Title: Cinq Jeunes Gens (c.1888/89) Signature: stamped with initials 'E.V' lower right Medium: pen and ink on paper Size: 5.80 x 10½cm (2.3 x 4.1in) Framed Size: 21 x 26.3cm (8.3 x 10.4in) Provenance: JPL Fine arts, London (label verso); Private Collection a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} The son of a widowed seamstress who worked in Paris, from his earliest years, Édouard Vuillard learned a love of materials and patterns that remained with him throughout his life. After attending, on a scholarship, the prestigious Lycée Fontanes, he decided not to follow the military career his fath... Read more Jean Édouard Vuillard Lot 102 - 'Cinq Jeunes Gens (c.1888/89)' Estimate: €800 - €1,200 The son of a widowed seamstress who worked in Paris, from his earliest years, Édouard Vuillard learned a love of materials and patterns that remained with him throughout his life. After attending, on a scholarship, the prestigious Lycée Fontanes, he decided not to follow the military career his father had taken, and instead enrolled in art classes at the Academie Julian. He became a leading member of Les Nabis (the Prophets), a progressive artists' group that flourished in the last decade of the nineteenth century and included artists such as Félix Vallotton and Ker-Xavier Roussel. Vuillard's paintings and murals mainly depict interiors, parks and family scenes, but with an emphasis on colour and pattern, rather than on detail of hands and faces. He shared with Pierre Bonnard and Maurice Denis a keen awareness of everyday life, and in his art, people and their surroundings are given equal importance. Influenced by Japanese woodcuts, Vuillard also designed theatre sets, developing a style in which flat areas of colour were juxtaposed, and decorative qualities were as important as academic fine art values. Many of his paintings depict seamstresses and women wearing colourful and brightly patterned clothing. Depicting a group of boys playing a street game, this drawing probably dates from 1889, when Vuillard was doing his military service. The boys appear to be playing marbles, or 'Tic et Tac'. Judging by their dress, they are cadets, while the taller man, also in uniform, has epaulettes on the shoulders of his jacket. Vuillard enjoyed capturing such informal scenes of everyday life. In the first decade of the twentieth century he worked on a series of mural paintings depicting the parks of Paris, Les Jardins Publique, commissioned by Alexander and Olga Natanson. Peter Murray, March 2023