Félix Vallotton

In 1889, Paul Sérusier, who was effectively the organiser of the Nabis group, wrote to Maurice Denis about Édouard Vuillard’s initiation: “Welcome! I am dreaming of a pure brotherhood in the future, consisting entirely of artists who are confirmed devotees of the beautiful and the good, taking as the foundation of their creative work and their conduct that quality which is hard to define, and which I call by the word Nabi.”

I would very much like to achieve something in painting; something to do with portraits, as always. What do you want of me? That’s the way I’m made, and it is only in this that I have any chance of achieving succ

Nevertheless, he would turn to his family again and again for help, as after paying for his lodging and for models, he would have nothing left for food. He tried to work just as much as he was physically capable of doing.

If you want to do painting, then have the courage to do so with love, and either sell very little of it, or none at all...

My heart sinks when I think of what I am about to study, and realise that I am nothing compared with the great artists who startled the world at the age of fifteen…

Having devoted a total of only eight years to printmaking, he mastered that most forgotten of all the graphic arts – xylography. Despite his culture and intellectualism, and his membership of the group of Symbolists, Vallotton’s works were easily understood, even by the man-in-the-street.

In the Water, 1919. Oil on canvas, 61 nbsp;x nbsp;48 nbsp;cm. Private collection.

Vidy Beach, 1925.