Study for 'Les cinq peintres' (The Five Painters)
1902-1903
Medium
graphite on board
Dimensions
sheet: 32.1 × 24.6 cm (12 5/8 × 9 11/16 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Anonymous
Accession Number
2020.164.1
Art Historical Context
Félix Vallotton created graphite drawing as a preparatory for his 1902–1903 painting *Les cinq peintres* (The Five Painters). A Swiss-French artist associated with the Nabis group, Vallotton often explored intimate, stylized scenes of modern life. Here, the study captures the careful planning behind a group portrait, likely depicting fellow painters in a moment of creative exchange. Rendered in graphite on board, the work reveals Vallotton’s precise line work and attention to composition. Such studies allowed him to refine poses, lighting, and spatial relationships before committing to the fi...
About the Artist
Félix Vallotton
Félix Vallotton (1865–1925) was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, into a comfortable middle-class family, and moved to Paris in 1882 to enroll at the Académie Julian, where he studied under the portrait painter Jules Joseph Lefebvre and the history painter Gustave Boulanger. Paris would remain his home for the rest of his life, and he became a French citizen in 1900 following his marriage to the art ...