Félix Vallotton: Painter of Disquiet, Royal Academy

'I think I paint for people who are level-headed but who have an unspoken vice deep inside them,' said Swiss born painter Félix Vallotton (1865 – 1925). This sense of tension, this subtle disquiet, is what characterises even Vallotton’s most apparently serene paintings.

Vallotton moved to Paris when he was 16 and enrolled at the Académie Julian. A precocious talent, he rejected Impressionism and instead drew inspiration from Ingres and the northern Dutch traditions, developing a cool, tight style. He formed connections with the Nabis, a group that helped pave the way for French modernism, and which included artistic heavy weights Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard.

It was through his associations with this movement that Vallotton eventually became the principal illustrator for the influential periodical La Revue Blanche, making caustically satirical woodcuts that owed much to Japanese woodblock printing. He also painted interior scenes, which were imbued with an unsettling quiet. Often starkly lit and psychologically charged, these images have seen him compared to Edward Hopper and Alfred Hitchcock.

This exhibition will bring together close to 100 of Vallotton’s works from collections around the world, including his female nudes, images of the first world war and his piercing early portraits. This promises to be a fascinating show that will shed light on the unease of a generation, as well as the inner world of Vallotton himself.