Born in 1867 at Fortenay-aux-Roses in France, Pierre Bonnard was the son of a prominent French civil servant. As a result, Bonnard’s early professional life was in the field of law. He studied art on the side before deciding to become an artist full time. Bonnard was a member of Les Nabis and the Societe des Artistes Independants, a group of young artists including Toulouse-Lautrec, Edouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis, who shared studio spaces and regularly showed in Paris and throughout France.
Bonnard’s work is recognized most for his intense use of color; building up layers of paint with intricate brushwork and nuanced values. His most frequent subjects were sunlit interiors, garden spaces, and his wife and companion Marie Mousin, whom he met while she was selling artificial flowers in Paris.
Unlike other artists of the time, Bonnard worked in his studio. Rather than paint from observation, he was known to photograph, making notes on the colors, before returning to his studio to recreate the experiences and observations from his notes. Bonnard was a diligent and passionate painter, completing his final painting from his bed a week before his death in 1947.