Fireworks (plate VI) from The World's Fair (L'Exposition Universelle)

Associated with the French post-impressionist group Les Nabis, Félix Vallotton began his career as a painter, but he is best known for his stark black-and-white woodcuts. His scenes, which are often domestic in nature, are marked by simplified details and undifferentiated areas of shading. Vallotton was influenced by the works of Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein, which he saw in the Louvre as a young art student, as well as by Ukiyo-e Japanese prints, an Edo period art form that centered on depictions of cosmopolitan life. In his reductive woodcuts, Vallatton prefigured the visual sobriety of such disparate artists as August Sander and Edward Hopper.

Lausanne, Switzerland