The Green Room (Alternate Title)
Intérieur. Vestibule. Effet de Lampe. (Primary Title)
Le Salon Vert (Former Title)
Felix Vallotton, Swiss, 1865 - 1925 (Artist)
When Vallotton was eighteen, he moved from Switzerland to Paris. While a student at the Académie Julian, he befriended Vuillard and became directly associated with the Nabi movement in 1892. Early in his career as a printmaker and painter, Vallotton distinguished his work within the group by representing unsentimental scenes from modern Parisian life. His interest in interiors and the intimate dynamics of relationships began manifesting in 1898 in his woodblock prints and paintings made after photographs. In 1899, he married Gabrielle Bernheim, the daughter of a wealthy Parisian art dealer, and the couple moved into a spacious apartment in rue des Belles-Feuilles, in Paris's affluent 16th arrondissement. The Green Room situates the viewer within the living room of the apartment, providing a distant perspective of Gabrielle seated in the adjacent vestibule. Vallotton represents the three-dimensional space using a series of embedded rectangles that frame his wife's figure and confer exclusive attention upon her. Cleverly employing an economy of detail to shorten the depth of perspective, the artist renders Gabrielle's expression inscrutable. The viewer is left guessing what she may be contemplating or perhaps brooding over, an air of mystery that accords an introspective dimension to the scene.
2019-2021: Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Their Times: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, February 2 - May 5, 2019; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, April 4, 2020 - January 10, 2021
2018-2019: "Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts", The Frick Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, March 17 - July 15, 2018; Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, June 22 - September 22, 2019
2016: Electric Paris, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut, May 14 - September 4, 2016
1992: "Felix Vallotton: A Retrospective", (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven: October 24, 1991 - January 5, 1992; Museum of FIne Arts, Houston: Januart 31-March 29, 1992; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis: April 25, June 21, 1992).
1973: French Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, 1973
1955: Félix Vallotton, Maison de la Pensée Française, Paris, 1955, No. 21
1904: Galerie Berheim-Jeune, Paris, "Nabis", 1904, No. 23 [as "Interieur Soir"]
Some object records are not complete and do not reflect VMFA's full and current knowledge. VMFA makes routine updates as records are reviewed and enhanced.
