This fascinating exhibition at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., revisits the origins of the Kodak myth through the photographs of post-impressionist painters, who found inspiration for their paintings in the pictures they took.
In 1888, Kodak released its first portable camera with the slogan “You press the button, we do the rest.” With this invention, photography became accessible to almost everyone, encouraging creativity and talent in all its forms. The medium caught on with the circle of post-impressionist painters, who captured their privates lives, surroundings, family and friends. Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard shines a light on the work of seven figures, from Pierre Bonnard and Maurice Denis to Edouard Vuillard and Félix Vallotton, all members of Les Nabis, a group of avant-garde French artists who sought a new kind of painting inspired by Paul Gauguin. It marked the blossoming of the “desire to paint one’s imagination,” says Elizabeth Easton, curator at the Phillips Collection in Washington.
Through two hundred photographs, some presented alongside the paintings and sketches they inspired, the spirit of these celebrated painters is more accessible than ever. The artists recorded everything: street scenes, the construction of the Eiffel Tower, trips to the countryside. “These photographs are so spontaneous!” says Easton. “Maurice Denis took pictures of his children, Edouard Vuillard, le nabi zouave, his friends and family. These are the kinds of snapshots of memories that Roland Barthes and Proust would describe. They go beyond the mere evocation of paintings.” The photographs from the recently unknown collection were taken by artists who didn’t consider themselves photographers. “Sometimes we see a connection between the photographs and paintings because they were made by the same hand,” explains Easton. “But we also see images that were never reproduced with paint, which is also interesting.”
Assembled with the help of the artists’ families, the Musée d’Orsay and the royal archives of Brussels, this collection is exceptional for its existence as well as its long unavailability. “These images haven’t been seen in a very long time,” says Easton. “When the families first welcomed me, I felt a little bizarre, like I was disturbing something.” At the Vuillards, in 1981, Easton found a treasure trove of material, but she was only invited back twenty years later to examine them, and only for a single day. The plan for the exhibition was hatched thirty years before its opening. Today, ten thousand items have been found, some with the original negatives, some without, and some negatives that were never printed. “This is just the beginning,” says Easton. These images represent not only the dawn of the Kodak era, but the advent of the “mnemonic sentiment” at the root of photography in the last century. “The fact that the exhibition opening coincided with Kodak declaring bankruptcy is absolutely poignant.”
Jonas Cuénin
Snapshot : Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard
Through May 6, 2012, at the Phillips Collection in Washington
1600 21st St., NW, Washington, DC 20009
Near 21st and Q Streets, NW
www.phillipscollection.org
