Ancienne collection Charles Terrasse, Paris

Collection Madeleine Terrasse, Paris

Galerie Alexis Pentcheff, Marseille 

Acquis auprès de cette dernière par l'actuel propriétaire le 15 avril 2022

Collection Louis Grandchamp des Raux

Bâle, Kunsthalle Basel, Pierre Bonnard, mai-juillet 1955, n°97, p.30

Nice, Galerie des Ponchettes, Bonnard, août - septembre 1955, n°43, p. 32 (selon une étiquette au dos)

Munich, Haus der Kunst München, Paris, Orangerie des Tuileries, Centenaire de la naissance de Pierre Bonnard, octobre 1966 - avril 1967, n°155, reproduit (selon une étiquette au dos)

Marcq-en-Baroeul, Fondation Anne et Albert Prouvost, Bonnard, avril-juillet 1978, n°44

Colmar, Musée d’Unterlinden, Autour d’une acquisition : Bonnard, juin-septembre 1982, n°35 (selon une étiquette au dos)

Londres, Hayward Gallery, Newcastle, Laing Art Gallery, Bonnard at Le Bosquet, juin-octobre 1994, n°58, reproduit p.109 (selon une étiquette au dos)

Paris, Galerie Schmit, Pierre Bonnard, Paris, mai-juillet 1995, n°50, reproduit (selon une étiquette au dos)

Nice, Musée Matisse, Bonnard-Matisse, une amitié, juin-octobre 1996 (selon une étiquette au dos)

Washington, The Phillips Collection, Denver, Denver Art Museum, Pierre Bonnard, Early and Late, septembre 2002 - mai 2003, n°133 p.241, reproduit en couleur p.275

Le Cannet, Musée Bonnard, Bonnard et Le Cannet. Dans la lumière de la Méditerranée, juin-septembre 2011, n°55 p.154, reproduit en couleur p.116

Le Cannet, Musée Bonnard, Bonnard, Le Cannet, une évidence, juillet-novembre 2020, n°38, reproduit en couleur en couverture et p.103

Laren, Singer Laren, La Grande Bleue, Painters of the Méditerranée, septembre 2023 – janvier 2024, reproduit p.102-103

Aix-en-Provence, Hôtel de Caumont, centre d’art, Bonnard et le Japon, avril-octobre 2024, n°111, reproduit en couleur p.12 (détail) et p.166

Nouveau Fémina-Illustration, mars 1956, reproduit p. 81

J. et H. Dauberville, Bonnard, catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint 1940-1947, Tome IV et supplément 1887-1939, Bernheim Jeune, Paris, 1974, n°1675, reproduit en noir et blanc p.93

C. Chicha-Castex, A. Lévêque, V. Serrano, Pierre Bonnard Au fil des jours Agendas 1927-1946, L’atelier contemporain, Nancy, 2019, reproduit p. 266

Un certificat de Monsieur Pierre Vernon pourra être délivré sur demande de l'acquéreur.

“It is not a question of painting life, but of bringing painting to life.”

At the start of the 20th century, the Côte d’Azur became one of the most vibrant centres of artistic creation. In this « grand atelier du Midi », as André Chastel would later call it, painters came to test their art against a stronger, sharper light, which compelled them to reinvent their palette and place colour at the heart of their artistic exploration.

It was at the invitation of the Fauvist Henri Manguin that Pierre Bonnard discovered Saint-Tropez. From then on, he returned regularly to the Midi before acquiring, in 1926, the Villa du Bosquet in Le Cannet, in the hills above Cannes. It was in the year before his death, from the bedroom of his humble home, that Bonnard painted this Petite Fenêtre (1946). On 9 April 1945, he first imagined the painting in a small sketch drawn in his diary from his bedroom window (ill. 1). He then reworked the composition into a much more polished drawing (ill. 2), where most of the elements were already in place. The artist sincerely admired Monet and Renoir, the two great Impressionist masters, but his vision remained fundamentally different from theirs. Whilst he considered direct

observation of the subject essential, Bonnard subsequently favoured a lengthy studio process in order to create a distance between what he had seen and what he had felt, seeking to avoid becoming a prisoner of reality. In this process, drawing played a central role as the most spontaneous and immediate aspect of his method.

During his various stays in Le Cannet, particularly during the war years, Bonnard’s work reached a high point in its exploration of light (ill 3). The landscape became his main source of inspiration: the Mediterranean countryside offered him new and intense sensations, constantly renewed (ill. 4). In La Petite Fenêtre, it is nearly nine o’clock in the morning and the summer light floods the artist’s bedroom. Bonnard has kept the right-hand window panel slightly ajar so that he can have the one on the left wide open, then he has stepped forward to take in the landscape. On the left, the bluish almond tree occupies a significant part of the view. On the slope of the garden leading down to the right, an orange tree stands out in front of a small outbuilding whose roof tiles catch the light.

On the right-hand window panel left ajar, the knob is visible, so the artist is standing on the left, looking diagonally, in a wideangle view, at the garden and its terraces. In this landscape, with its powerful chromatic contrasts and clearly defined planes, nature

is imbued with a vibrant lyricism.

The artist multiplies colour harmonies, superimposes layers of paint, scrapes away and tirelessly reworks his canvases (ill. 5).

La Petite Fenêtre, one of Bonnard’s final works, bears witness to the

way in which he managed to give form to his sensations. The almost palpable paint layer becomes light thanks to the shimmering vegetation. An invitation to silence and contemplation, this radiant and familiar nature reveals the deep serenity that Bonnard found at Le Cannet.

1. Pierre Bonnard, Observations sur la peinture, 1946, rééd. Strasbourg, L’atelier contemporain, 2015, p. 53.

Fig. 1 : Agenda de Pierre Bonnard, 9 avril 1945, Bibliothèque nationale de France

Fig. 2 : Pierre Bonnard, La petite Fenêtre, 1946, crayon noir

Fig. 3 : Pierre Bonnard, Le Cannet, 1930, huile sur toile, Fondation Bemberg, Toulouse

Fig. 4 : Pierre Bonnard, Vue du Cannet, 1927, huile sur toile, musée d’Orsay, Paris

Fig. 5 : Pierre Bonnard, Midi au jardin, circa 1936, huile sur toile, musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris