In fact Vallotton added the child and the flat, tightly interlocking planes of rich colors that form the background to the independently conceived portrait of his wife, linking the two figures in an image of maternal tenderness that appears perfectly unified. Gabrielle seems to gaze down at her young niece Germaine Aghion, crouched at her feet and scattering crumpled pieces of paper as if they were flower petals these bright, white fragments stand out against the deep, warm hues of the carpet. Vallotton painted the left side of the composition from a photograph he took of Gabrielle at the Château d’Etretat, where the couple had stayed that summer and autumn, making slight modifications. Vallotton and the other Nabis were among the first artists who readily adopted the camera to document scenes that they would later paint this surely influenced the formal structure of works such as this portrait, known to have been based on a photograph.Įxecuted late in 1899, the year of Vallotton’s marriage to Gabrielle Rodrigues-Henriques, a widow with three children and the daughter of wealthy, retired Parisian gallery owner Alexandre Bernheim-Jeune, this work shows the artist’s wife comfortably nestled in a chair. In 1892 he joined the avant-garde Nabis group-whose members included Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, and Edouard Vuillard-and began to practice a style known as Intimism, favoring domestic subjects and compressed compositions. Flix Edouard Vallotton translation and audio. Moving to Paris from his native Switzerland in 1882, he enrolled as an art student in the prestigious Académie Julian. Pronunciation guide: Learn how to pronounce Flix Edouard Vallotton in French with native pronunciation. Felix-Edouard Vallotton (1865-1925) - Madame Vallotton and Her Niece - 1899įrom Known primarily as a printmaker, particularly for the bold woodcuts of contemporary urban life he began publishing in fashionable illustrated journals in the 1890s, Félix Vallotton was also an accomplished painter of portraits and interiors.

Félix edouard vallotton