Painter

Félix Vallotton

Félix Vallotton was a Swiss-born painter linked to the Nabis, known for unsettling interiors, sharp contours, enigmatic figures, and stark color contrasts.

Félix Vallotton quick facts

Vallotton's printmaking shaped his precise silhouettes and flat colors; he later painted psychologically charged rooms and carefully composed landscapes.

Félix Vallotton quick facts
Full name	Félix Édouard Vallotton
Born	1865 · Lausanne, Switzerland
Died	1925 · Paris, France
Nationality	Swiss; later a French citizen
Movements	Nabis (brief association)
Paint types	Oil Paint · Gouache Paint
Other media	Woodcut printmaking
Other materials	—
Painting surfaces	Canvas · Wood · Cardboard
Painting methods	Developed studio compositions from sketches or photographs, using crisp contours and simplified color areas
Common subjects	Domestic interiors, couples, women, still lifes, Provençal landscapes, and urban scenes
Notable works	The Ball · Street Scene in Paris · The Cook · Landscape at Saint-Jeannet, Provence

Sources: The Met: Vallotton's Nabi years and paintings, The Met: Street Scene in Paris, gouache and oil on cardboard, The Met: Landscape at Saint-Jeannet, Provence, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art: Vallotton oil paintings.

Paint types used by Félix Vallotton

Vallotton used oil on canvas and panel for landscapes and interiors, and combined oil with gouache on cardboard for smaller, closely framed scenes.

Oil paint

The Met records The Port of Honfleur at Night as oil on cardboard mounted on panel. Vallotton used the prepared, rigid support for a sharply bounded nocturnal view, distinct from the canvas paintings in his later landscape work. The collection record identifies both the medium and the layered support construction.
Gouache

The National Gallery of Art catalogs Street Scene in Paris as gouache and oil on cardboard. The record distinguishes opaque gouache from the oil used in the same work, documenting both paints on a rigid paper-based support. This mixed-media street scene differs from Vallotton’s oil-only landscapes on canvas.

Sources: The Met: The Port of Honfleur at Night; The Met: Street Scene in Paris.; National Gallery of Art: Félix Vallotton

Painting surfaces used by Félix Vallotton

Collection records document canvas and wood in Félix Vallotton’s practice, and each row links a support to a named object and its recorded materials.

Canvas

Vallotton’s oils, including Landscape at Saint-Jeannet, are documented on canvas. The textile support carries landscape paintings distinct from the cardboard-mounted panel used for The Port of Honfleur at Night. Collection records document canvas in his painted practice across different subjects.
Wood

Vallotton painted on wood panels in selected works and studies, as recorded by museum collections. The rigid surface differs from canvas and from cardboard mounted on panel. These entries preserve the specific wood support documented for his works rather than assuming all panel paintings share the same construction.
Cardboard

The Met records The Port of Honfleur at Night as oil on cardboard mounted on panel, and the NGA records Street Scene in Paris as gouache and oil on cardboard. These examples document cardboard both as a mounted support and as a base for a mixed-media work.

Painters similar to Félix Vallotton

Bonnard and Vuillard knew Vallotton in the Nabis circle and likewise explored flattened forms, patterned surfaces, and closely observed interiors.

Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard was a French Nabi painter known for richly colored domestic interiors, gardens, patterned surfaces, and intimate scenes from daily life.

Édouard Vuillard

Édouard Vuillard was a French painter who made intimate decorative compositions from interiors, gardens, patterned surfaces, and oil and distemper.

Félix Vallotton