The Swiss artist Félix Vallotton (1865–1925) was born in Lausanne but spent most of his working life in France. Although he was a close friend of Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard and a member of the avant-garde Nabis group, Vallotton has often been eclipsed by his more illustrious contemporaries. He painted some of his most important works in Paris in the 1890s, but an original and innovative approach was a feature of his work throughout his career. He had a preference for interiors and portraits, while not eschewing nudes and landscapes. Witnessing the carnage and devastation of the First World War, Vallotton’s work became charged with symbolic significance.
This book includes contributions by the chief experts on Vallotton, in which they examine the artist’s life, work, and influence, with the aim of reassessing not only his oeuvre as a whole, but also his legacy. The book’s many illustrations include all the best-known paintings and prints, as well as a number of works never previously published.
Dita Amory is a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the author of Madame Cézanne (2014).
Philippe Büttner is the collection curator at the Kunsthaus in Zurich.
Ann Dumas is a curator at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
Patrick McGuinness is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Oxford University, as well as a novelist, critic, and poet.
Katia Poletti is director of the Vallotton Foundation.
Christian Rümelin is curator of the prints and drawings section of the Graphic Arts Cabinet of the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Geneva.
Belinda Thomson is an honorary researcher at Edinburgh University and an independent art historian.