Original Lithographic Poster Bonnard 1957, Mourlot (Arch Paper)

This is an original lithographic poster printed by Mourlot Frères on Arches paper for the exhibition Depuis Bonnard at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris in 1957 — a landmark show dedicated to the painters who had come after Bonnard, tracing the chromatic and formal revolution he had set in motion and its consequences for the generation that followed. Arches paper was reserved by Mourlot for the most prestigious impressions — its weight, texture and archival quality set it apart from ordinary poster stock, and its presence here signals a piece intended from the outset to endure as a collector's object. This is the rarest variant of this poster, and one of the finest printed documents of Bonnard's posthumous consecration at France's premier modern art institution.

Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), born near Paris and trained at the École des Beaux-Arts alongside Édouard Vuillard and Ker-Xavier Roussel, was a founding member of Les Nabis — the group of young painters who, inspired by Gauguin and Japanese prints, sought to make colour and pattern the primary vehicles of emotional expression. But it was in his later work — the sun-drenched interiors, gardens and bathroom scenes from his years at Le Cannet on the Côte d'Azur — that he achieved his supreme and most personal art. His canvases shimmer with chromatic intensity that no photograph can capture: the light of the Mediterranean absorbed and re-emitted through a palette that Matisse himself acknowledged as extraordinary. He once said of his paintings: "What I am after is the first impression — I want to show all one sees on first entering the room — what my eye takes in at first glance."

The title Depuis Bonnard — "Since Bonnard" — was itself a declaration. Ten years after the artist's death, the Musée National d'Art Moderne was placing him at the origin point of a lineage: the painter from whom modern French colourists had descended, the hinge between Impressionism and everything that came after. To print this poster on Arches paper at Mourlot was to give that declaration the weight it deserved.

This example is in good condition — grade A, ready for the wall it deserves.

A rare and distinguished piece — Bonnard's posthumous consecration, on the finest paper Mourlot could offer, at the museum that placed him at the origin of modern colour.