Pierre Bonnard and India Mahdavi exhibition announced for 2020 NGV winter masterpieces blockbuster

Art by French impressionist master Pierre Bonnard will be shown in a world-first immersive exhibition at NGV next year. Here’s why you won’t want to miss it.

French delicacy will charm Melbourne next year when Australia’s largest ever exhibition of Pierre Bonnard comes to the NGV.

The winter masterpieces exhibition will be a world first, featuring a large collection of works from post impressionist master Pierre Bonnard that will be shown in an immersive exhibition designed by award-winning architect and designer India Mahdavi.

Her domestic vision will be matched with the intimate portrayals of domestic and rural life perfected by Bonnard, declaredby his close friend, Henri Matisse as “a great painter, for today and definitely also for the future”.

Pierre Bonnard’s 1908 La loge oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

“Monsieur Bonnard and I share the same passion — colour,” Madhavi said.

“I love his subjective perception of colour — the way he transforms the intimacy of everyday life into something sublime — how he invites us into his home, to look through a bathroom door, or to look out through the window onto the sunset in Le Cannet.”

Bonnard’s art will be displayed inside India Mahdavi’s architectural displays such as RED Valentino store, London.

NGV director Tony Ellwood said the exhibition was a way to bring 19-century painter Bonnard to a 21st century audience.

Looking at Bonnard through the lens of Mahdavi, famous for designing the London’s Sketch Gallery and Restaurant, is a way to reinterpret what he did 100 years ago.

“Pierre Bonnard is one of the most captivating artists of the post-impressionism movement,” Mr Ellwood said.

Pierre Bonnard’s Coffee, 1915 oil on canvas. Tate, London.

India Mahdavi’s Merry-go-round room – Imaginary Architecture for the Homo Faber exhibition in Venice. Picture: Tomas Bertelsen, courtesy of Michelangelo Foundation

“He was obsessed with colour and decorative pattern and India has embraced that beautifully, including some specially designedfurniture, her wallpaper which Bonnard also loved and flooring.

“Normally we would present Bonnard in a traditional way but we want to respect the period and the thinking while taking itfor inspiration of what Bonnard saw and loved.”

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Pierre Bonnard has been developed in partnership with Paris’s Musee d’Orsay, which is loaning the paintings to the NGV.

They are alsocoming from the Art Institute in Chicago, the Tate Modern in London, MoMA and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

There will be about 150 works in the exhibition drawn from the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century including paintings, drawings, photographs, decorative objects and early cinema.

Pierre Bonnard. NGV. June 5-October 4.