What’s a nice non-Jewish post-Impressionist painter doing at the Jewish Museum? It could be an appropriate question to ask until you discover the visual answers throughout the galleries.
Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and his Muses, 1890-1940 is the title of a decorative exhibition featuring more than 50 works including portraits of Vuillard’s friends and acquaintances – mostly Jewish – who played important parts in the artist’s distinguished career, according to the Museum’s exhibit display and website. As I explored the exhibit and saw the role that Jewish patrons played in the Parisian business and cultural society, I took note of the unique relationship that was built between Vuillard and those patrons. The Jewish Museum’s appreciation of Vuillard is evident in its cataloguing display of his portrait paintings. It’s interesting to see how predominate and accepting the Jewish community was to Vuillard.
The museum notes that until he was 60, Edouard Vuillard, a lifetime bachelor, lived with his mother, saying that his mother was his muse. But as you learn during your exploration of the chronological exhibition, Vuillard became enamored with, and connected to, the families he was invited into, most notably the spouses in those families who he would continually and artistically feature in his works.
Early on, for example, were the three Natanson brothers, sons of prosperous Polish-
French Jewish bankers who invite Vuillard to show his heretofore unseen art work in their offices where they have started a political magazine, La Revue Blanche. According to the exhibition display notes, the Natanson’s gave Vuillard one of his first public display’s and big break. After one brother, Thadee marries the beautiful Misia, she soon becomes the muse and major subject in a number of Vuillard’s works. Within a short time however, he joins up with the Bernheim-Jeune gallery managed by Jos Hessel, whose gorgeous wife Lucy begins what would become a four decade-long artistic and personal relationship with the gallery’s star artiste, according to the exhibition notes on display.
Soon the culturally sophisticated Jewish elite actively becomes patrons and clients of Vuillard. As you explore the exhibit, you are introduced to impressive portraits of art dealer Sam Salz as well as the banker David David-Weill who was chairman of the family investment bank Lazard Freres., according to the exhibition notes. A large painting of businessmen and art collectors Henri and Marcel Kapferer is also quite impressive. Two family portraits stand out. One features Madame Jean Bloch and her children which hung in the patriarch’s office until he was arrested by the Nazis and deported to Auschwitz. His wife and children survived the war.
Another portrait features Claude Bernhein de Villers, the three year old son of the gallery owner. The exhibition notes that his mother Suzanne, who is hidden in the portrait. perished in Auschwitz.
The stories behind the canvases of Edouard Vuillard help make for a most interesting discovery of this post-Impressionist painter. But don’t miss the way black and white photographs taken by Vuillard with his Kodak hand-held camera are notably incorporated into the exhibition to help add to the incredible stories. Finally, there’s a short film at the end of the exhibition which uses some of Vuillard’s candid photos to put his interesting, decorative and artistic life into a cinematic perspective.
Edouard Vuillard’s exhibition continues at the Upper East Side Jewish Museum (Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street, NYC) through Sept. 23. I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a late spring and summer experience you’ll definitely warm up to.
