Edouard Vuillard (1868–1940) was one of France?s best-loved painters. Vuillard belonged to the generation of young, experimental artists at the forefront of French art including Pierre Bonnard and Maurice Denis, who lived and worked in Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This group of artists, who in the early 1890s formed the Nabis group, were strongly influenced by Paul Gauguin?s use of colour and symbolism. Seeking an escape from naturalism, Vuillard employed intense colours and simplified form in his portraits, interiors and landscapes. Alongside his friend Bonnard, he was one of the main practitioners of Intimisme, intimate domestic genre painting. A master of painting technique, Vuillard?s work is characterised by his use of colour and emphasis on surface pattern and decoration.
