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Louis-Léon Le Barc de Bouteville (1837–1897) was one of the most important promoters of the art of the Nabis.
Following his retirement, the wealthy connoisseur opened a small gallery in Paris in 1891 to show the latest avant-garde work.
It was located in the 9th Arrondissement, close to other cultural hotbeds like the Durand-Ruel gallery and the magazine La Revue blanche.
Critics, artists and collectors came to explore the latest work and to trade anecdotes over a cigarette.
The Nabis showed their work alongside that of other groups of artists at the successive exhibitions Le Barc organised under the collective name Impressionnistes et symbolistes.
They exhibited a mix of paintings, drawings and prints, indicating that they placed the same value on the different media.
The 1893 exhibition catalogue featured a lithograph of each artist, together with a handwritten summary of the exhibited works.
Each entry was thus a decorative composition, in which the artists could present themselves in an original way.
In April 1892, Le Barc allowed Emile Bernard to use his gallery free of charge for a retrospective of the work of Vincent van Gogh.
Bernard single-handedly designed and printed a catalogue for the exhibition, which paid tribute to his deceased friend.
He combined the list of works with woodcuts he had made previously; the coarse treatment in the rough wood and the casual finish reflect his quest for a primitive art.
Frantz Jourdain, Né en 76, Paris, 1951
Mary Ann Stevens, Emile Bernard 1868–1941. A Pioneer of Modern Art, Zwolle, 1990
Pierre Sanchez, Les expositions de la galerie Le Barc de Boutteville (1891–1899) et du Salon des Cent (1894–1903). Répertoire des artistes et liste de leurs œuvres, Dijon, 2012
Continue your journey into the Parisian print world of the fin de siècle. Discover more printmakers, stories and themes. The connections are endless.
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