«Vivre notre temps!» Bonnard, Vallotton and the Nabis
The Nabis group, founded in 1888 around the artists Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Félix Vallotton and Édouard Vuillard, symbolically represents the collapse of Impressionism and the beginnings of modern art. The farewell exhibition of the Hahnlower/Jaeggli Collection in the Kunstmuseum Bern shows its most prominent works of the painters of this audacious movement.
It addresses the tensions between subject and painting surface, and the associated change from figurative to abstract painting. The juxtaposition of works by their most important models Paul Gauguin and Odilon Redon and the Nabis artists captures the moment in which artistic vocabulary has been reassessed. "Vivre notre temps!" was the maxim Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser followed in collecting art. The Hanhloser/Jaeggli Collection will then return to its place of origin, to the Villa Flora in Winterthur.
Curator : Marta Dziewańska
Curatorial assistance : Livia Wermuth
