From the Parisian bohemia to the battlefields of the First World War, the art of Félix Vallotton was forged in a time of great turbulence – but his vision remained astonishingly personal and unique. Here was an artist who not only captured the essence of his time, but also put his own distinctive stamp on it, oscillating between incisive realism and biting irony. Discover him!
Félix Vallotton, the Swiss artist who conquered Paris
Born in Lausanne in 1865 to a modest Protestant family, Félix Vallotton soon set his sights on Paris, driven by his artistic ambitions from the age of 16. It was here, at the heart of the artistic effervescence, that he forged his reputation. Becoming a French citizen in 1900, he lived the rest of his life in France, but remained faithful to traditional modes of representation, favoring reality over the experimentation that led to avant-garde movements such as Impressionism and Cubism.
In the 1890s, Vallotton made a name for himself with his witty illustrations that mocked the bourgeoisie and satirized chaotic everyday life in the city. He soon became an associate member of the Nabis, forging close ties with key figures such as Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. However, his marriage in 1898 to Gabrielle Rodrigues-Henriques, a wealthy widow and sister of the owners of the famous Bernheim-Jeune gallery, anchored him in the social class he had previously criticized. Assured of a stable financial future, Vallotton abandoned the style that had made him famous to devote himself to painting. He developed a sharp, unsettling style, characteristic of the many nudes, still lifes and landscapes he produced in the last 25 years of his life. His friend Thadée Natanson was right: Vallotton was truly an extraordinary artist…
The maestro of etching
A virtuoso printmaker, Félix Vallotton restored the European tradition of woodcutting to its former glory, an art that had lost its lustre since the Northern Renaissance and its emblematic figures such as Albrecht Dürer. As early as 1891, Vallotton adopted this medium and quickly established himself as one of the most accomplished and sought-after engravers of his time.
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With sharp wit and unrivalled technical mastery, he exploited the dramatic contrast of black ink on white paper to create radically simplified scenes of public and private life in Paris. Inspired by the shadow puppets he had seen at the Cabaret du Chat Noir, his vignettes, imbued with caustic contempt, mock the bourgeoisie: men and women lead lives of infidelity and dishonesty, hypocritical and hedonistic. Elsewhere, demonstrators agitate in anarchist uprisings, passers-by rush to shelter from the rain, and shoppers beg for the latest luxury goods.
Much more than a painter and engraver…
Félix Vallotton was a multi-faceted artist, far beyond painting and printmaking. A writer and playwright, he wrote three novels and eight plays, in addition to designing stage sets, taking photographs and sculpting. His most famous novel, La vie meurtrière, features Jacques Verdier, a character with a tragic power: everyone who crosses his path dies in an accident. Vallotton himself illustrated this novel in a darkly humorous style, similar to that of his independent prints such as Le Meurtre.
His friend Vuillard, co-founder of the Théâtre de l’Œuvre theater company in 1893, inspired Vallotton, who helped create sets and programs for the theater. Spurred on by these experiences, Vallotton took up playwriting and, in 1904, his play Un Homme très fort was performed at the Théâtre de Grand Guignol in Paris. In 1899, after acquiring a Kodak camera, he began capturing snapshots of his surroundings: summer vacations, domestic scenes and visits to friends. These images became memory aids for his paintings, which he reworked in his studio, manipulating compositions to create strange, fictionalized versions of reality.