While the Nabis profoundly renewed the art of illustration at the turn of the 19th ^and 20th ^centuries , Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) was one of those who dedicated his entire life to it. His * Petit Solfège illustré* , published in 1893 with the composer Claude Terrasse, marks his first explorations of combining text and drawing. Equally decisive was his encounter with the circle of writers and artists who animated *La Revue blanche* , which became the crossroads of all the avant-garde movements in the 1890s. And when the art dealer Ambroise Vollard, in 1900, asked Bonnard to create lithographs for Paul Verlaine’s *Parallèlement *, they both laid the foundations for what is now considered the first artist’s book.

Reinforcing his commitment to the book arts, Bonnard made it a fully-fledged mode of expression within his work. He took on numerous projects, responding to offers and his friendships: he created the character of Ubu for Alfred Jarry, sketched Octave Mirbeau’s car journey through Northern Europe, and whimsically illustrated Léopold Chauveau’s children’s books. La Sainte Monique , written and published by Ambroise Vollard, offered him the opportunity to experiment with the various techniques of printmaking, combining lithography, etching, and wood engraving. Having retired to the South of France in the 1930s, where he devoted himself exclusively to painting, the artist nevertheless returned to illustration thanks to the publisher Tériade and Verve , soon hailed as “the most beautiful magazine in the world.”

“Drawing is sensation,” Bonnard wrote in his diaries. The exceptional collection of the painter’s drawings, held at the Institut de France and presented here for the first time, reveals his graphic laboratory. With expressive gestures, using graphite or pen, he creates a dialogue with texts and engages with writers, exploring his art, often imbued with humor, across a wide range of genres (poetry, erotica, theater, classical and children’s literature, music, etc.). The journey through these publishing projects demonstrates that each one was, for Bonnard, an opportunity to profoundly renew his style.

Curators: Corisande Evesque (Mazarine & Institut Libraries)
& Véronique Serrano (Bonnard Museum)