The French painter Edouard Vuillard was born at Cuiseaux, Saône-et- Loire in 1868.  He made friends with Bonnard and Sérusier while studying at the Académie Julian. Ker Xavier Roussel, Maurice Denis and the producer Lugné-Poë were fellow pupils of his at the Lycée Condorcet.

Although he was not attracted to Symbolism, he was closely linked with the Nabis.  The main influences upon Vuillard’s work were Gauguin and Japanese color prints which had inspired him to developed a style of flat, strongly patterned areas of color that he also used for decorative panels, stage sets and color prints.  By the turn of the century he was already master of a quiet but subtle and sensitive manner of painting interiors in a late Impressionist style. He was best known for his small intimiste interiors that he painted in his own technique using distemper (an emulsion of egg white and size) instead of oil to bind the pigments. From 1903 to 1914 he exhibited regularly at he Gallery Bernheim Frères; he was one of the founders in 1903 of the Salon d’Automne and exhibited there until 1911.

From around 1900 his friendship with the wealthy Hessel couple brought him commissions from the world of financiers, politicians, actresses and such. Vuillard’s paintings constitute a delightful document of the French upper middle classes during the first three decades of the century.  He continued to represent his subjects in their intimiste surroundings and particularly noteworthy are his series of artists depicted in their studios, which he did between 1925 and 1937. 

He exhibited little after 1914, but a large retrospective exhibition of his work was given at the Musee des Arts Décoratifs in 1938.  He also did a number of decorative commissions including two murals for the Champs Élysées Theatre in 1913, La Comédie for the theater of Chaillot in 1938 and La paix protégant les muses for the Palais des Nations at Geneva.