Bernard Boutet de Monvel: At the Origins of Art Deco

Discover the work and life of artist Bernard Boutet de Monvel, a groundbreaking painter of the cafe society and dandies who was highly influential to the Art Deco movement.

Bernard Boutet de Monvel (1881-1949), painter of sportsmen and dandies, was also an interior designer and iconic illustrator of masculine elegance for publications including Harper’s Bazaar and the Gazette du Bon Ton. After being decorated as an aviation hero for his service in World War-I, he spent time in Morocco, where he acquired a thoroughly modern vision.

As early as 1909, he heralded the Art Deco style, and from 1926 he became the favored portraitist of the American Cafe Society, whose sophisticated members avidly collected the paintings of this dandy who was heralded as the handsomest man in Europe by the American press.

The creme de la creme of international millionaires paraded through his studios in New York and Palm Beach-from H.H. the Maharaja of Indore to W. K. Vanderbilt, from Elsie de Wolfe (Lady Mendl) to Millicent Rogers, and from the Astor, Whitney, Frick, and Du Pont dynasties. Bernard Boutet de Monvel, who also became a key Precisionism artist, reflected the industrial and urban modernity of America’s Machine Age in his stunning landscapes.

Richly illustrated with previously unpublished documents and photographs, this important monograph sheds new light on the protean work of Bernard Boutet de Monvel, restoring his place at the forefront of the history of French and American art.