Frieze Masters 2026

Although Pierre Bonnard is not usually thought of first as a landscape painter, landscape was in fact the subject to which he devoted most of his career. More than any other artist of the twentieth century, he became the true heir to the Impressionists. Living at Vernon, near Giverny, from 1912, only a short distance from Claude Monet, Bonnard immersed himself in the changing landscape of the Seine valley. Yet, unlike the Impressionists, he rarely painted directly before the motif. Instead, he relied upon drawings made during his daily walks through the surrounding countryside, using them later in the studio as the starting point for works developed from memory. Significantly, the format of the finished painting almost always differed from that of the original drawing, allowing him to reinvent the composition rather than simply copy what he had seen.

Bonnard approached landscape less as topographical description than as an exploration of rhythm, structure and sensation. His drawings possess a remarkable economy of means; their apparent spontaneity conceals an acute understanding of composition, with every mark contributing to a carefully balanced whole. Far from being preparatory sketches in the conventional sense, they are complete works in themselves, capturing both the enduring character of a place and the fleeting effects of light, atmosphere and season.