This rare and evocative lithographic poster by Édouard Vuillard, created in 1893, is both a piece of theatrical history and a milestone in French Symbolist printmaking. Designed as an illustrated program for a special transformation of La Revue Blanche and a performance of Gerhart Hauptmann’s Lonely Lives (Âmes Solitaires), this artwork embodies the spirit of avant-garde theatre and literature in fin-de-siècle Paris.
The poster announces the upcoming transformation of La Revue Blanche from January 1st, 1894, alongside a performance of Hauptmann’s drama at Lugné-Poe’s Théâtre de l’Œuvre, the epicenter of Symbolist theatre in France. Vuillard’s lithograph is a visual poem of dense textures, ghostly forms, and floating text, capturing the introspective tone of the production and the intellectual world around it.
Handwritten names and titles—such as those of cast members, literary contributors, and key Symbolist thinkers—are scattered across the composition. Among them are figures like Maurice Maeterlinck, Paul Verlaine, and Octave Mirbeau, alongside references to Symbolist actors and the influential critic Félix Fénéon.
Vuillard, a key member of the Nabis (a group of post-Impressionist artists with spiritual and decorative aims), breaks away from traditional poster formats. Rather than a bold commercial design, this is a dreamlike tableau, blending intimate domestic scenery with literary reverence. The blurred silhouettes and sketch-like faces evoke the emotional solitude and psychological complexity of Hauptmann’s play.
Printed in soft, shadowy tones with expressive linework, this program blurs the boundary between ephemeral ephemera and fine art, much like the collaborative ethos of the Nabis and Symbolist movements.
Today, this lithograph is prized as an iconic document of early modernist theatre and French visual culture, representing Vuillard’s unique blend of introspective art and theatrical innovation.
Theater - Avant-Garde - France
Ref : Roger-Marx 19 - Aitken 60
Good condition
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