Vuillard. Théâtres intimes

The works of the painter Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940), a leading figure of the Nabis movement, at once intimate and innovative, never cease to charm and intrigue us. With this first exhibition devoted to Vuillard in France in nearly 25 years, the Musée d'Orsay offers the chance to explore an unprecedented subject: the artist's fascination with the theatre, which permeates and stimulates his art for more than five decades, from the early 1890s to the late 1930s.

Vuillard frequents cabarets and café-concerts as much as he delights in classical tragedies, and often turns to more alternative venues where, in the 1890s, Symbolist plays at the forefront of the avant-garde are staged. A devoted spectator of every kind of theatre, Vuillard is also its 'actor', closely associated with these progressive circles. Working behind the scenes, he designs programmes and stage sets for these productions, and draws from this new dramaturgy the motifs, props and intense atmosphere of his own paintings: intimate interiors, which he arranges in the manner of a stage designer.

Moving with ease among these ever-renewed circles of actors, critics and playwrights, Vuillard paints portraits of these strong personalities throughout his life, including, at the beginning of the 20th century, figures of the boulevard theatre. He also continues to devote himself to an art in which he excels: decoration, carrying out major commissions for the interiors of two great Parisian theatres, on the theme of the theatre. These murals, at once mise en abyme and synthesis of a constant passion for the stage and performance, form the crowning achievements of a painting career constantly nourished and radically renewed by this other art form.