Pierre Boonnard: Illustrator

As a commercial illustrator, French post-impressionist painter Bonnard could slide easily into almost any style yet leave a distinctive stamp on the images he created. Vast distances separate Bonnard's satirical, puckish sketches for Alfred Jarry's Pere Ubu , his realistic studies of dogs, roosters, elephants, and his caustic or carnal illustrations for Andre Gide's retelling of the Prometheus myth. Recollections dredged up from childhood, wartime scenes, unabashed nudes and lovers--all are rendered with spontaneity and acute sensitivity. This cat a logue raisonne ranges from Bonnard's first ad, an 1891 sheet music design, to the blazing sun he drew for a Verve magazine front cover shortly before his death in 1947. While much of this is minor, one can also find, in certain pictures, the contrasting patterns and complex rhythms that characterize Bonnard's major paintings, lithographs and etchings. (June)