25th Conference. Félix Vallotton: Longing and Seduction

Around 1900, Paris was the undisputed center of the European avant-garde. At the age of just sixteen, Félix Vallotton (1865–1925) moved from Lausanne to the French capital, where he emerged as one of the most original voices of modern art. As a member of the Nabis from 1892 onwards, Vallotton was in close dialogue with Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, and Maurice Denis. As the only foreign artist in the group and because of his reserved and unconventional personality, he was nicknamed Le Nabi étranger. Yet despite his close ties to the Nabis, he pursued a distinctly independent artistic path and developed a highly individual visual language. He fused the group’s decorative Symbolism with psychological intensity, clear, reductive forms, a dramatic use of color, and an often ironic view of the bourgeoisie. In his late work, Vallotton engaged with Henri Rousseau’s deliberately naïve conception of the human figure, while some still lifes and landscapes reveal an affinity with the New Objectivity. Alongside his painting, Vallotton fundamentally transformed the medium of woodcut, developing a radically simplified graphic language that gave rise to some of the most compelling print cycles of the fin de siècle. He also illustrated books and journals and wrote plays and novels. Taking the dynamic interplay between printmaking and painting as its point of departure, the exhibition traces the evolution of Vallotton’s artistic idiom.
 

The symposium is held in preparation for the exhibition Félix Vallotton: Longing and Seduction, which will be on view from 20 November 2027 to 20 February 2028 at the Museum Barberini, Potsdam, and from 10 March to 25 June 2028 at Museum Ordrupgaard, Charlottenlund.

Conference Program (PDF, 654.69KB)

from 09:30 a.m.
Access for attendees to the symposium

10:00
Welcome
Ortrud Westheider, Museum Barberini, Potsdam
Gertrud Oelsner, Museum Ordrupgaard, Charlottenlund

10:15
Friends among the Nabis: Félix Vallotton and Édouard Vuillard
Rudolf Koella, Zurich
Lecture in German

11:15
Naïveté as Modernity:Félix Vallotton in Dialogue with Henri Rousseau
Claire Bernardi, Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris
Lecture in English

12:15 – Lunch break

14:00
Desire and Distance: The Female Image in Félix Vallotton‘s Work
Elisabeth Bronfen, University of Zurich
Lecture in German

15:00
From Paris to Copenhagen: Félix Vallotton and the Danish Avant-Garde
Dorthe Vangsgaard Nielsen, Museum Ordrupgaard, Charlottenlund
Lecture in English

16:00 – Coffee break

16:30
From the Black of the Woodcut to the Dramaturgy of Color: Vallotton between Printmaking and Painting
Valentina Plotnikova, Museum Barberini, Potsdam
Lecture in German

17:30
Nature as Metaphor: Aspects of Félix Vallotton‘s Landscape Painting
Christoph Vögele, Solothurn
Lecture in German

18:30
Reception