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Artwork Details
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Title:Village Scene, Grasse
Artist:Pierre Bonnard (French, Fontenay-aux-Roses 1867–1947 Le Cannet)
Date:1912
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:29 in. × 20 1/2 in. (73.7 × 52.1 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Bequest of Scofield Thayer, 1982
Accession Number:1984.433.2
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): 12 / Bonnard
[Bernheim-Jeune, Paris; acquired from the artist]; Mrs. Epstein, Berlin (by 1915–22; sold in September 1922 to Thayer); Scofield Thayer, Vienna and New York (1922–d. 1982; on extended loan to the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Mass., as part of the Dial Collection, 1931–82; his bequest to MMA)
Paris. Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées. "Salon d'Automne," October 1–November 8, 1912, no. 180 (as "Coin de village").
New York. Montross Gallery. "Original Paintings, Drawings, and Engravings Being Exhibited with the Dial Folio 'Living Art'," January 26–February 14, 1924, no catalogue (typed checklist no. 5; as "Scène Villageoise").
Rochester, N. Y. Memorial Art Gallery. "The Dial Portfolio of "Living Art"," February–March 1924, no. 64 (as "Village").
Worcester Art Museum. "Exhibition of the Dial Collection of Paintings, Engravings, and Drawings by Contemporary Artists," March 5–30, 1924, no. 4 (as "Scène villageoise").
Northampton, Mass. Hillyer Art Gallery, Smith College. "The Dial Collection," May 1924, no catalogue.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Prints by Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard," December 15, 1938–January 15, 1939, no. 1 (as "Village Scene," 1909, lent by the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts).
Boston. Institute of Modern Art. "'La Vie Française': An Exhibition of Paintings Chiefly by Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard," October 6–November 11, 1944, no. 9 (as "Village Scene," lent anonymously, courtesy of The Worcester Art Museum).
Cleveland Museum of Art. "Pierre Bonnard," March 3–April 11, 1948, no. 50 (as "Village Scene," anonymous loan through the courtesy of the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts).
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Pierre Bonnard," May 10–September 6, 1948, no. 50.
New York. Wildenstein. "A Special Exhibition of Paintings by American and French Modern Masters," May 4–28, 1955, brochure no. 1 (as "Village Scene," 1925–30, lent by The Worcester Art Museum).
Worcester Art Museum. "The Dial and the Dial Collection," April 30–September 8, 1959, no. 2 (as "Village Scene").
Nagoya. Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art. "Pierre Bonnard," March 28–May 18, 1997, no. 26 (as "Village Scene").
Tokyo. Bunkamura Museum of Art. "Pierre Bonnard," May 24–July 21, 1997, no. 26.
Julius Meier-Graefe. Entwicklungsgeschichte der modernen Kunst. Vol. 3, Munich, 1915, p. 538, as in the Epstein collection.
Léon Werth. Bonnard. Paris, [1920], pl. 27, as "Coin de village".
Scofield Thayer. Living Art: Twenty Facsimile Reproductions after Paintings, Drawings and Engravings and Ten Photographs after Sculpture by Contemporary Artists. New York, 1923, paintings section, colorpl. 2, as "Village," 1909.
Thomas Craven. "Living Art." Dial 76 (February 1924), p. 182.
Henry McBride. "Modern Art." Dial 76 (February 1924), p. 208.
[Elisabeth Luther Cary]. "The World of Art: Modern Art of One Kind and Another." New York Times (January 27, 1924), p. SM10.
Dial 76 (June 1924), ill. opp. p. 481 (color), as "Scène villageoise".
"Originals of the Dial Folio of Living Art at Montross." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (February 3, 1924), p. 26.
Harley Perkins. "The Dial Collection of Living Art: Paintings, Water Colors and Engravings Assembled by Scofield Thayer and Exhibited at the Worcester Art Museum." Boston Evening Transcript (March 22, 1924), p. 8.
Arthur Millier. "Many Paintings, a Few Facsimiles." Los Angeles Sunday Times (June 15, 1924), p. 28.
Herbert J. Seligmann. "Living Art for Americans." Nation 118 (April 9, 1924), p. 403.
Ralph Flint. "More Modernism in New York." Christian Science Monitor 16, no. 57 (February 2, 1924), p. 11.
"Modern Art Spirit Seen in Collection." Worcester Daily Telegram (March 6, 1924), p. 4.
Ragnar Hoppe. Städer och konstnärer: Resebrev och essäer om konst. Stockholm, 1931, ill. p. 187.
J[ulius]. Meier-Graefe. "Bonnard." Art News 37 (December 31, 1938), ill. p. 9.
Daniel Catton Rich. "Bonnard-Vuillard Celebration: The Chicago Art Institute Shows the Two 'Futurists'." Art News 37 (December 31, 1938), p. 22.
John Rewald. Pierre Bonnard. Exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art. New York, 1948, p. 140, no. 50, ill. p. 95, dates it about 1925–30.
Louisa Dresser inThe Dial and the Dial Collection. Exh. cat., Worcester Art Museum. Worcester, Mass., 1959, p. 58, no. 2.
Nicholas Joost. Scofield Thayer and The Dial: An Illustrated History. Carbondale, Ill., 1964, p. 229.
Jean and Henry Dauberville. Bonnard: Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint. Vol. 2, 1906–1919. Paris, 1968, p. 280, no. 719, ill., call it "Scène villageoise" or "Coin de village" and date it 1912.
Nicholas Joost. "The Dial Collection: Tastes and Trends of the 'Twenties." Apollo 94 (December 1971), pp. 488, 493.
Albert Kostenevich. Bonnard and the Nabis from the Collections of Russian Museums. Bournemouth, England, 1996, p. 102, ill., as "Rural Scene" or "Corner of a Village"; erroneously locates it as still in the Dial Collection; discusses it among paintings executed in Grasse in late spring 1912; comments that although it is not a study for "Summer. The Dance" (1912; Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; D720), it is "one of the works which prepared the way for it".
Hidenori Kurita inPierre Bonnard. Ed. Hidenori Kurita et al. Exh. cat., Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art. Nagoya, 1997, pp. 86–87, 229, 239, no. 26, ill. (color), notes that this is one of ten pictures executed during Bonnard's stay in the town of Grasse in southwestern France from January to April 1912; suggests that this work, along with "Scene with Goats" (Museum Folkwang, Essen; D721) is a preparatory work for "Summer. The Dance" (Pushkin; D720) [see Ref. Kostenevich 1996].
Sabine Rewald inObsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso from the Scofield Thayer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. New York, 2018, p. 123 n. 42.
Elsa Smithgall with Lisa Lipinski in George T. M. Shackelford with Elsa Smithgall. Bonnard's Worlds. Exh. cat., Kimbell Art Museum. Fort Worth, 2023, p. 88, fig. 30 (color).
Bonnard executed nine other paintings during his stay in the town of Grasse from January to April 1912 (Dauberville nos. 698, 705, 707, 718, 720, 721, 722, 731, 741). This picture is considered a preparatory work for "Summer. The Dance" (1912; Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow) [see Refs. Kostenevich 1996, Kurita 1997].
Pierre Bonnard (French, Fontenay-aux-Roses 1867–1947 Le Cannet)
1930
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