The Swiss painter Félix Vallotton (1865?1925) and his artworks were uniquely poised to embrace both the dawn of modernism and the fading light of the post-impressionist and symbolist movements. Lavishly illustrated, Félix Vallotton traces the artist?s life from his early days as a portraitist and printmaker to his later work as painter who prefigured European modernism.

Linda Schädler and Christoph Becker reveal Valloton to be not only the most important Swiss symbolist, but an intelligent observer of his tumultuous times, highly critical of bourgeois convention. His sometimes eerie naturalism, the authors argue, links him to literary fashions of the day as well as reflecting the inception of psychoanalysis. This stunning volume forges a new understanding of landmark paintings from an especially fertile period in art history and the fascinating artist behind them.