Félix Vallotton

Born Dec. 28, 1865, in Lausanne; died Dec. 29, 1925, in Paris. Swiss graphic artist and painter who worked in France.

Vallotton studied at the Julian Academy in Paris. During the years 1891-98 he worked primarily in the technique of wood engraving. His psychologically expressive portraits of writers (the woodcut Dostoevsky, 1895) and the spiritually revealing scenes from Parisian life (the series Story of a Certain Crime and Intimacy), constructed by means of a tense combination of white and deep black spots, are extremely laconic. Later Vallotton painted nudes, interiors, and landscapes in which forms are reproduced with a cold precision and in a sharply patterned space (Model Undressing, 1904, P. Vallotton Gallery, Lausanne).