Bonnard-Vuillard. Abolir le hasard

Bonnard-Vuillard. Abolir le hasard

In spring 2027, the Musée des impressionnismes Giverny explores the artistic brotherhood between Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard, from their meeting in 1889 until Vuillard’s death in 1940. Far more than a brief companionship, the two artists recognised one another early on in their shared position within the Nabis, resistant to dogma and little drawn to the Symbolist esotericism of the group’s theorists, Maurice Denis and Paul Sérusier.

Their friendship was matched by a close, reciprocal observation of each other’s work, after they shared a studio on rue Pigalle during the Nabi years. This exchange of glances gave rise to a constant dialogue of inspiration, as the two men, despite their differing temperaments, proved responsive to the same images and the same milieux. Then, around 1910, and above all after the First World War, each took a direction that would prove decisive for his legacy: Bonnard withdrew ever further into colour-filled worlds and a floating reality, while Vuillard became the chronicler of his age and of the urban life around him, embodying a synthesis of the French pictorial tradition.

The exhibition highlights their affinities and differences through several major themes, before turning to their evolution in the twentieth century, which confirms two distinct artistic paths that nevertheless remained in dialogue.

Curators: Cyrille Sciama, General Director and Chief Curator of the Musée des impressionnismes Giverny, and Mathias Chivot, Head of the Vuillard-Roussel Archives, specialist of the Nabis.

With the exceptional support of the Musée d’Orsay.

Visuals :
Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947)
Enfant mangeant des cerises (détail), 1895
Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, Collection, D.1773
National Gallery of Ireland Collection. Presented, in memory
of May Guinness, 1982, NGI.4356.
Photo © National Gallery of Ireland

Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940)
La Soupe d’Annette (détail), 1900-1901
Paris, musée national d’Art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou,
en dépôt au musée de l’Annonciade, Saint-Tropez, AM 3842 P
Photo © F. Joncour

Opening days

Exhibition open from March 26, to July 4, 2027.

Full price | Concession price

• Adults: €12 | €9
• Audioguide : €4/person (FR or EN)

Free entry for:

• Visitors under 18.
• Eure residents on the first Sunday of the month of July (proof of residency required)
• All individual visitors on the first Sunday of the months of April, May and June.