Summer Soirées 2012            

Summer Soirées is the biennial fundraiser of the FPDP in support of acquisitions of prints, drawings and photographs. Since it’s inception in 1996, the program has raised more than $220,000 to purchase works on paper for the museum’s collection.

 This year’s target acquisition, Childrens’ Games by Edouard Vuillard (French, 1868–1940), is one of the iconic images of the “color revolution” in French lithography. It is printed in four colors (red, yellow, blue, and gray-beige) and was issued in an edition of 100 prints for the second Album des Peintres-Gravures, as one of 22 prints by different artists in this famous suite published by Ambroise Vollard.

 Paris of the 1890s was the epicenter of adventurous and unprecedented efforts in modern printmaking. Conditions were perfect for leading artists known for their achievements as painters to begin creating complex multi-colored lithographs in collaboration with a few master printers and visionary publishers. Edouard Vuillard, with Pierre Bonnard and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, were at the forefront of this exceptional movement. Vuillard’s Children’s Play exemplifies this new form of art at its finest. It is a captivating depiction of people enjoying play on a summer day and filled a joie de vivre that is so in spirit with our Summer Soirées program.    

The DIA continues to build its holdings of these ground breaking prints. Fans of the Summer Soirées program will remember that Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s vibrant portrait of the actress Mademoiselle Marcelle Lender was acquired by Summer Soirées 2008.