Félix Édouard Vallotton (; December 28, 1865December 29, 1925) was a Swiss and French painter and printmaker associated with the group of artists known as . He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut. He painted portraits, landscapes, nudes, still lifes, and other subjects in an unemotional, realistic style.
His earliest paintings were influenced by Holbein and Ingres. He developed a simpler style during his association with Les Nabis during the 1890s, and produced woodcuts which brought him international recognition. Characterized by broad masses of black and white with minimal detail, they include street scenes, bathers, portraits, and a series of ten interiors titled Intimités (Intimacies) that portray charged domestic encounters between men and women. He produced few prints after 1901, and concentrated instead on painting. His later paintings include highly finished portraits and nudes, and landscapes painted from memory.
He was also active as a writer. He published art criticism during the 1890s, and his novel La Vie meurtrière (The Murderous Life) was published posthumously.
Early life
Vallotton was born into a conservative middle-class family in Lausanne, the third of four children. His father owned a pharmacy, and later purchased a chocolate factory. His mother, Emma, was the daughter of a furniture craftsman. His family environment was warm but strict, in the Swiss Protestant tradition. Beginning in 1875 he attended the Collège Cantonal, graduating with a degree in classical studies in 1882. He also began to attend the drawing classes of the painter Jean-Samson Guignard, normally reserved for most advanced students, where he showed a particular skill in close observation and realism. When he completed the course, he persuaded his parents to let him go to Paris to study art seriously.
In January 1882 he settled in Rue Jacob in the neighborhood of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and enrolled in Académie Julian, where he studied with the portrait painter Jules Joseph Lefebvre and the history painter Gustave Boulanger, and where he perfected his technical skills. He spent many hours in the Louvre, and he greatly admired the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Holbein, Dürer, and more modern painters, including Goya and Manet, and especially Ingres, whose works were models for Vallotton throughout his life.
In 1883, Vallotton's father wrote to Lefebvre, questioning whether his son could make a living as a painter. Lefebre responded that the young Vallotton had the talent and ability to succeed. In the same year, Vallotton succeeded in the rigorous competition to enter the École des Beaux-Arts, but decided instead to remain at the Académie Julian, where his friends were. He also began to frequent the cafés and cabarets of Montmartre.
In 1885 the methodical Vallotton began keeping a notebook, called his Livre de Raison, in which he listed all of his paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints. He kept the log his entire life. When he died, it listed one thousand seven hundred works. In the same year he presented his first works at the Paris Salon; the Ingresque Portrait of Monsieur Ursenbach as well as his first painted self-portrait, which received an honorable mention. In the same year he presented a painting at the Salon des beaux-arts in Geneva.
Career
Early career (1887–1891) In 1887 Vallotton presented two portraits at the Salon, the Portrait de Félix Jasinski and Les Parents de l'artiste, which demonstrated his skill but also, by their extreme realism, departed from the traditions of portrait painting. They were severely criticized by his professor, Jules Lefebvre. Vallotton increasingly began to work outside of the Académie Julien. He began to have financial difficulties; his father, whose firm was having its own financial problems, was unable to support him. His health also suffered, as he came down with typhoid fever and then a bout of depression. In 1889 he returned to Zermatt Switzerland for several weeks to recover, and there painted several Alpine landscapes. In 1889 he also met Hélene Chatenay, an employee in a Swiss factory or shop, who became his companion for ten years.