LONDON – Tate Modern will stage the UK’s first major Pierre Bonnard exhibition in 20 years, showing the work of this innovative and much-loved French painter in a new light.

The exhibition will bring together about 100 of his greatest works from museums and private collections around the world. It will reveal how Bonnard’s intense colors and modern compositions transformed painting in the first half of the 20th century and will celebrate his unparalleled ability to capture fleeting moments, memories and emotions on canvas.

Born 1867, Bonnard was, with Henri Matisse, one of the greatest colorists of the early 20th century. He preferred to work from memory, imaginatively capturing the spirit of a moment and expressing it through his unique handling of color and innovative sense of composition.

The exhibition concentrates on Bonnard’s work from 1912, when color became a dominant concern, until his death in 1947. It presents landscapes and intimate domestic scenes which capture moments in time – where someone has just left the room, a meal has just finished, a moment lost in the view from the window, or a stolen look at a partner.