Experience the light and color of France.

In Bonnard’s Worlds, the Kimbell Art Museum presents its first exhibition dedicated to the works of French painter Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), inspired by its 2018 acquisition of the artist’s Landscape at Le Cannet (1928). As an artist, Bonnard found inspiration in the natural spaces, intimate interiors, and people that surrounded him in his homes and on his travels through Paris, Normandy, and the French Riviera. Through his paintings—glowing with intense colors and flooded with light—he invites us all into the most fascinating corners of these worlds.

The first major exhibition of Bonnard’s paintings in Texas in nearly forty years, Bonnard’s Worlds explores the sensory realms of experience that fueled the painter’s creative practice—from the most public spaces to the most private. Reuniting seventy of Bonnard’s finest paintings, created over the course of his career, the exhibition includes some of the artist’s most celebrated works from museums in Europe and the United States as well as many that are unfamiliar to the public from private collections around the world. Governed neither by chronology nor geography, but by measures of intimacy, the exhibition transports visitors from the larger realms in which Bonnard lived to the most private interior spaces of his dwellings and of his thoughts. 

En español

On Display

Audio Tour

The audio tour for Bonnard's Worlds is available only on the Kimbell app for Apple and Android devices. Visitors can purchase the tour access code for $4 ($3 for members) online or at the Piano Pavilion ticket desk. Audio tour by Acoustiguide. 

Purchase the access code

Bonnard's Worlds Audio Tour Script

Virtual Tour

Bonnard's Worlds (November 5, 2023–January 28, 2024)

Exhibition Catalogue

by George T. M. Shackelford
With Elsa Smithgall
Contributions by Isabelle Cahn, Cyrille Sciama and Veronique Serrano

 

A fascinating journey into Pierre Bonnard’s world and the inspiration behind his spatially arresting and intimate paintings
 
Pierre Bonnard’s paintings are renowned for their unusual intimacy. Delving into the sensory realms of experience that fueled Bonnard’s practice—from the most public to the most private—this volume looks at the inspiration behind the artist’s work. Through the lens of more than 70 works, including many largely unknown examples from private collections in addition to celebrated paintings from museums around the world, scholarly essays transport the reader into Bonnard’s world and shed new light on the artist’s unique life circumstances. Governed neither by chronology nor geography, but by measures of intimacy, this study travels with Bonnard through the landscapes of Paris and Normandy, to the interior spaces of the artist’s dwellings, and deep into the artist’s thoughts. 

Purchase the hardcover

Purchase the softcover 

A colorful catalogue propped up on a plain background.

Large-Print Labels

Exhibition labels with large-print text are available for visitors.

Read the PDF

The exhibition is organized by the Kimbell Art Museum and The Phillips Collection. 

The exhibition is supported in part by Frost, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Fort Worth Tourism Public Improvement District, and by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Promotional support for the Kimbell Art Museum and its exhibitions is provided by American Airlines, PaperCity, and NBC 5. 

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American Airlines logo, NBC 5 logo, and Paper City logo