Getting Ready for a Visit, plate eight from Intimacies

Art Historical Context

Félix Edouard Vallotton a Swiss-born artist associated with the avant-garde Nabis group in late 19th-century Paris, captured fleeting glimpses of everyday intimacy in his seminal 1898 series *Intimacies*. *Getting Ready for a Visit plate eight from this set of 10 woodcuts, offers a voyeuristic peek into a private moment—likely a woman primping before company arrives—rendered with Vallotton's signature economy of line and unflinching gaze. Created amid the fin-de-siècle fascination with modern life and Symbolist introspection, the series challenged conventions by elevating mundane domestic scenes to poetic heights, blending humor, eroticism, and social observation. Vallotton's mastery of the woodcut medium shines here: carved into wood and printed in stark black on cream wove paper (image 17.7 × 22.4 cm), it exemplifies the Nabis' revival of this ancient technique for contemporary ends. Bold contrasts, flattened forms, and crisp, sinuous contours create a modern graphic intensity, foreshadowing Art Nouveau and early modernism. Far from mere illustration, these prints prioritized pattern and emotional resonance over realism. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints and Drawings department, this work underscores Vallotton's pivotal role in transforming printmaking into high art, inviting viewers to linger on the quiet dramas of daily life.

About the Artist

Félix Edouard Vallotton · 1865–1925

Félix Edouard Vallotton (1865–1925) was a Swiss-French painter and printmaker whose deceptively spare imagery concealed a penetrating psychological acuity and a gift for formal invention. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, he moved to Paris at the age of seventeen to study at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, quickly immersing himself in the city's vital avant-garde scene. By the 1890s he had beco...