Curated by Stephen Brown
Édouard Vuillard (1868–1940) is often credited with having elevated the domestic interior to its crucial position in modernism. His experiments with pictorial form were rooted in seclusion from urban life, and under his treatment, interior spaces and their elaborate decors and patterns became synonymous with flatness. The Jewish Museum now promises to highlight the degree to which Vuillard’s art, by contrast, was social and collaborative in nature, emphasizing the crucial role played by his family, friends, dealers, and patrons. The Natanson family, the Hessel family, and the greater Bernheim-Jeune circle can now be newly appreciated as the people in and behind Vuillard’s modernist scenarios. Stretching the whole of his career, from the 1890s to 1940, the exhibition gathers about fifty paintings and works on paper, plus related photo- graphs, journals, and letters, and is accompanied by a catalogue authored by the curator and Richard R. Brettell.
