In the 1890s, Vallotton joins the Nabis group, Paul Sérusier, Emile Bernard, Maurice Denis, Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. They realize together woodcuts and illustrations for newspapers and magazines.

Naked woman sitting in a red chair belongs to a period in which Vallotton marks his own style. The tight framing of the corner of the room, the close position of the chair and the wall, counting the place, helping to remove any temporality to the scene. The colors enhance this impression: reduced to red, green and yellow, they are placed in flat tints with a smooth business and evenly cover the space allotted to them. The coaster on the wall reminds the interest of Vallotton for printmaking. Instead of generating an opening, this fictional space confirms the flatness of the wall, so that the table.

Prisoner of this space, the pattern of naked seems to escape its lascivious position and the particular rendering of the body. Insensitive pass values ​​into a flesh-colored paint restores the modeling and provides a realistic view of the character in a supernatural context. The sensation of weight and volume expressed this particular treatment of the body is offset by the lightness of the contour line that wraps the silhouette and draws an arabesque.

In this table, the simplification of color and design results in the synthesis decorative Vallotton after Gauguin was able to achieve a big way.

Source: Musée de Grenoble