Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard

The invention of the handheld Kodak camera in 1888 expanded the practice of photography to the general public. Artists were not immune to its allure, and during the 1890s several Post-Impressionists made intriguing photographic experiments that recorded their daily lives and related directly to how they composed their oil paintings and works on paper. Featured artists include some of the finest interpreters of the new "snapshot" medium, such as Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Félix Vallotton, Edouard Vuillard, all members of the Nabi group, as well as Dutch artist Georg Breitner and the Belgian Henri Evenepoel. Their photographs, largely unknown, will be displayed alongside their paintings and prints, offering new insights into the works for which they are renowned. The exhibition features approximately 200 photographs, 40 paintings and 60 works on paper, including interiors, urban scenes and portraiture. Exhibition curators are Elizabeth Easton, director of the Center for Curatorial Leadership; Eliza Rathbone, chief curator, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., and Ellen Lee, Wood-Pulliam Senior Curator, Indianapolis Museum of Art. "Bonnard to Vuillard" will open at the Van Gogh Museum in Fall 2011, and then travel to the Phillips Collection for a February 2012 opening before opening at the IMA in June 2012.