Dream, Decoration and the Wider World

Montmartre and the Nabis: Posters, Prints and Interiors

From café-concert billboards to quiet rooms covered in pattern

In the 1890s, Paris artists carried painting onto the street and into the home. Montmartre's dance halls and cabarets hired painters to design posters for their stars. At the same time, a group of young friends made small, private pictures of family rooms, and printed albums of them for collectors.

• Posters and paintings of Montmartre nightlife, its performers and its audiences
• The Nabis' patterned interiors, decorative panels and self-portraits
• Color prints published by Ambroise Vollard, and a group portrait that names the painters' model

Works in this part

• Equestrienne (At the Cirque Fernando)
• Moulin Rouge: La Goulue
• Ambassadeurs: Aristide Bruant
• At the Moulin Rouge
• Divan Japonais
• Self-Portrait with Waroquy
• Decorative Panels: Women in the Garden
• Woman in a Striped Dress
• Interior with Pink Wallpaper I
• Houses in the Courtyard
• Homage to Cézanne

Image: The Art Institute of Chicago · CC0