Studio with mimosa records Bonnard’s Le Cannet studio and the natural splendour beyond its walls, including flowering mimosa (acacia) trees and the distant bay of Cannes. Central to the composition is Bonnard’s beloved motif of the open window vista, blurring the boundary between the interior and exterior landscape. The richly textured, luminous composition also exemplifies an important shift in the artist’s use of colour from this late period, as described by art historian Ursula Perucchi-Petri, ‘away from the mimesis of nature toward the transfiguration of reality in an ever richer and more luminous tapestry of colour’.
Pierre Bonnard
French 1867–1947
The studio with mimosa (L’Atelier au mimosa) 1939–46
oil on canvas
127.5 × 127.5 cm
Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne-Centre de création industrielle
Purchased from Charles Terrasse, 1979 (AM 1978 732)
Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Bertrand Prévost
This product is produced in collaboration with Musée d’Orsay and RMN-Grand Palais, Paris, France
