Félix Vallotton Collection
Swiss-born Frenchman Félix Vallotton (1865-1925) was a member of the Nabis from 1893, sharing their creative energy, penchant for experimentation, and desire to abolish the boundaries between various artistic forms. With 1700 paintings, over 200 engravings, drawings, novels, plays, books, and art criticism, Vallotton distinguished himself from his peers through his photographic eye and compositions with stark chiaroscuro, contrasting pure whites and velvety blacks, as seen in his Clouds series or his print series.
Drawing inspiration from the Japanese prints he collected, symbolism, and masters like Ingres, Da Vinci, and Dürer, he particularly distinguished himself in engraving, although he achieved success as a painter at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1885 and was known for his qualities as a portraitist.
It was his collaborations with the press that allowed him to express himself more freely through the combination of text and image. He contributed in particular to Thadée Natanson's Revue Blanche, but also to numerous other more or less satirical magazines such as L'Assiette au beurre, Le Rire, and Le Mercure de France.
In the prolific work of the Nabis, Félix Vallotton, through his disturbing strangeness and strong aesthetic biases, brings forth the genius of his work from the soil of his disquiet.
