Bonnard’s first breakthrough as an artist came in 1889, when he won a competition to design this poster advertising champagne, which is a tour de force of simplified and exaggerated form, bold use of restricted colour tones, and deliberate flatness of design. It caught the eye of Félix Fénéon, a progressive young critic who would soon be working for the cultural journal La Revue blanche (The White Review). Fénéon marvelled at how much this new kind of graphic advertising inexpensively beautified everyday life: ‘It is an open-air exhibition’, Fénéon wrote, seeing these posters in the streets of Paris, ‘throughout the year and all along the roads’.
Pierre Bonnard (artist)
French 1867–1947
Edward Ancourt, Paris (printer)
France active 1870–98
Edward Ancourt & Cie (publisher)
France active 1882–93
France-Champagne 1891
colour lithograph
78.0 × 57.8 cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased with the assistance of Orde Poynton Esq CMG, 1994 (95.79)
Photo: National Gallery of Australia
