Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard - Hardcover

Easton, Elizabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300172362 ISBN 13: 9780300172362

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2011

Synopsis

A fascinating look at how snapshots by seven Post-Impressionist artists influenced their work and the history of photography

The advent of the Kodak camera in 1888 made photography accessible to amateurs as well as to professionals. Artists were not immune to its allure, and many began experimenting with the camera as a means of observing the world and capturing their own images of it. Snapshot investigates seven Post-Impressionist painters and printmakers: Pierre Bonnard, George Hendrik Breitner, Maurice Denis, Henri Evenepoel, Henri Rivière, Félix Vallotton, and Edouard Vuillard. Although celebrated for their works on canvas and paper, these artists also made many personal and informal snapshots. Depicting interiors, city streets, nudes, and portraits, these photographs were kept private and never exhibited. As a result, most have never been seen by the public.

Juxtaposing personal photographs with related paintings and prints by these Post-Impressionist artists, Snapshot offers a new perspective on early photography and on the synthesis of painting, printmaking, and photography at the end of the 19th century.

Published in association with the Phillips Collection, the Van Gogh Museum, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art

Exhibition Schedule:

The Van Gogh Museum 
10/14/11–01/08/12

The Phillips Collection
02/04/12–05/06/12

The Indianapolis Museum of Art
06/08/12–09/02/12

About this title

About the Author

Elizabeth W. Easton is the cofounder and director of the Center for Curatorial Leadership. Clément Chéroux is a curator of the photographic collection at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Michel Frizot is research director of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Todd Gustavson is curator of technology at the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. Françoise Heilbrun was until April 2011 the founding curator of photography at the Musée d’Orsay. Ellen W. Lee is chief curator at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Anne McCauley is David Hunter McAlpin Professor of the History of Photography and Modern Art at Princeton University. Saskia Ooms works at Netwerk, a center for contemporary Art in Belgium. Katia Poletti is curator at the Fondation Félix Vallotton, Lausanne. Eliza Rathbone is chief curator of the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. Hans Rooseboom is curator of photography at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Reviews

Easton's book examines the relationship between the paintings and the amateur photos of the Nabis and other artists of the Post-Impressionist era through scholarly texts on individual artists and many beautiful, lavishly produced pictures—many of which are coming out of archives for the first time. What Snapshot teaches us is that it is the differences, and not the similarities, between these paintings and photographs that hold the key to the relevance of their comparison. —Shelley Rice

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300172362
• ISBN 13: 9780300172362
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248