The Square at Evening (1899): Art, History and Details

The Square at Evening (1899) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Pierre Bonnard (French, 1867–1947); Published by Ambroise Vollard; Printed by Auguste Clot.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

By the mid-19th century lithography was used primarily for commercial purposes, but was revived as a creative artistic medium by the success of color printing. The growing popularity of posters by artists such as Jules Cheret (1836-1932) and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec contributed to a renewed interest in color lithography at the end of the century. In addition, zinc plates, which are lighter, cheaper, and more flexible than traditional lithographic stones, had been perfected. There was also the influence of Japanese color woodblock prints and the formation of artist's organizations, like the Société des artistes lithographes Français (Society of French Lithographic Artists) and the Société de l'estampe originale (Society of the Original Print), to stimulate printmaking. By the 1890s a proliferation of fine printers, dealers, independent exhibitions, publications devoted to original prints, critics, and publishers all supported color lithography, which flourished in France as the favored printmaking medium of avant-garde artists.

Object facts

• Title: The Square at Evening
• Date: 1899
• Creator attribution: Pierre Bonnard (French, 1867–1947); Published by Ambroise Vollard; Printed by Auguste Clot
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: lithograph
• Dimensions: Sheet: 40.3 x 53 cm (15 7/8 x 20 7/8 in.); Image: 27 x 38 cm (10 5/8 x 14 15/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Lithograph
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1948.156.7

Collection credit

Gift of the Hanna Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Brown, Heather Lemonedes. “The Nabi City.” In Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris, 1889-1900. Mary Weaver Chapin and Heather Lemonedes Brown, 222-261. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2021.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.