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Artists›Maurice Denis

Maurice Denis

Maurice Denis

1870–1943

WA-00023660

PrintmakingArt NouveauImpressionismPost-Impressionism

Representation

None documented

22

Institutional Exhibitions

538

Works in Collection

1044

Assets Indexed

4

Authority-backed Facts

0

Publications Referenced

90%

Profile Completeness

Cultural Positioning

Influence Graph

No influence edges encoded yet.

Authority Records (2)

WikidataQ440369

Selected Institutional Exhibitions

View all exhibitions →

No image

Master Prints from the Collection

Museum of Modern Art, New York

1989

No image

Naked/Nude

Museum of Modern Art, New York

1986

No image

The Symbolist Aesthetic

Museum of Modern Art, New York

1980–1981

No image

Women of the Nineties: Fin-de-Si�cle Prints

Museum of Modern Art, New York

1979–1980

No image

Selections from the Collections

Museum of Modern Art, New York

1978

No image

Impresario: Ambroise Vollard

Museum of Modern Art, New York

1977

No image

Portraits

Museum of Modern Art, New York

1973–1974

No image

Symbolism, Synthesists, and the Fin-de-Si�cle

Museum of Modern Art, New York

1972

No image

Summer Show

Museum of Modern Art, New York

1971

No image

Four Americans in Paris: The Collections of Gertrude Stein and her Family

Museum of Modern Art, New York

1970–1971

No image

Twentieth-Century Art from the Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller Collection

Museum of Modern Art, New York

1969

No image

Recent Acquisitions: Painting and Sculpture

Museum of Modern Art, New York

1965

Field Verification (4 fields)

2 cross-verified · 2 single-source

BiographyWikidata· 92%✓
Birth yearArtsy· 85%✓
LocationArtsy· 85%
NationalityArtsy· 85%

Source Registry (2)

Sothebyshttps://www.sothebys.com/en/artists/maurice-denis
Tier 3 · Scraped/inferred100%
MoMA bulk 2026-05-04https://www.moma.org/artists/1492
Tier 1 · Institutional92%

About

Why this artist matters now

Maurice Denis (1870, 1943) was a French painter and theorist who pioneered the Symbolist movement and helped establish the Nabis, a group of Post-Impressionist artists working in the 1890s. He developed a distinctive approach to religious and decorative painting that emphasized flat color planes, rhythmic line, and spiritual content over naturalistic representation. Denis's theoretical writings, particularly his assertion that a painting is essentially a flat surface covered with colors, profoundly influenced modernist abstraction and design. His large-scale murals and easel works combined Byzantine and early Renaissance sources with contemporary formal innovation.

Source: Sothebys · Trust score: 100% · Updated 1mo ago

Graph relationships

Taste overlap and adjacency

Movement

Art Nouveau

Medium

Printmaking

Related Artists

12 in graph

Institutional

Museum Collections

Museum of Modern ArtNew York Art Institute of Chicago National Gallery of Art

Canonical record

Artworks (538)

Tailpiece (page 38) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 1 11/16 x 3 1/8" (4.3 x 7.9 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Headpiece and tailpiece (page 36) from POÈMES

Headpiece (comp. irreg.): 3/4 x 3 5/16" (2.0 x 8.4 cm); Tailpiece (comp. irreg.): 1 1/8 x 1 1/8" (2.8 x 2.8 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Headpiece and tailpiece (page 30) from POÈMES

Headpiece (comp. irreg.): 1 1/8 x 3 1/16" (2.9 x 7.8 cm); Tailpiece (comp. irreg.): 1 1/8 x 1 15/16" (2.8 x 4.9 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Headpiece (page 35) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 1 3/16 x 2 1/8" (3 x 5.4 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

In-text plate (page 23) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 2 13/16 x 3 1/2" (7.1 x 8.9 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Border (page 1) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 4 3/8 x 1 1/4" (11.2 x 3.2 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Tailpiece (page 28) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 5 1/4 x 1 15/16" (13.4 x 5 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Tailpiece (page 32) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 1 x 1 3/8" (2.6 x 3.5 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Headpiece and border (page 27) from POÈMES

Headpiece (comp. irreg.): 1 1/4 x 1 1/16" (3.2 x 2.7 cm); Border (comp. irreg.): 4 1/8 x 1/2" (10.5 x 1.2 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Headpiece (page 29) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 1 13/16 x 4 3/16" (4.6 x 10.6 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

In-text plate (page 133) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 4 5/16 x 3 1/16" (10.9 x 7.8 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Tailpiece (page 118) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 7/8 x 1 1/8" (2.2 x 2.8 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Headpiece (page 130) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 2 1/4 x 4 5/16" (5.8 x 11 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

In-text plate (page 121) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 2 15/16 x 3 3/4" (7.5 x 9.6 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

In-text plates (page 149) from POÈMES

Upper (comp. irreg.): 2 1/16 x 3 1/16" (5.2 x 7.8 cm); Lower (comp. irreg.): 2 1/16 x 2 11/16" (5.2 x 6.8 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

In-text plate (page 25) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 3 15/16 x 4" (10.1 x 10.2 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Headpiece and border (page 31) from POÈMES

Headpiece (comp. irreg.): 2 11/16 x 4 5/16" (6.9 x 10.9 cm); Border (comp. irreg.): 2 3/8 x 1/4" (6.0 x .6 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Tailpiece (page 26) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 2 1/2 x 3 1/16" (6.3 x 7.8 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Headpiece and border (page 6) from POÈMES

Headpiece (comp. irreg.): 2 3/8 x 3 1/4" (5.5 x 8.3 cm); Border (comp. irreg.): 3 1/16 x 3/8" (7.8 x .9 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Headpiece (page 33) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 2 9/16 x 4 1/4" (6.6 x 10.8 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Tailpiece (page 142) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 11/16 x 1 1/2" (1.8 x 3.8 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Headpiece (page 105) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 3 15/16 x 2 7/8" (10 x 7.3 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Tailpiece (page 154) from POÈMES

irreg. composition 2 13/16 x 2 1/16" (7.2 x 5.2 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

Headpiece and border (page 45) from POÈMES

Headpiece (comp. irreg.): 2 1/8 x 3 11/16" (5.4 x 9.4 cm); Border (comp. irreg.): 1 1/8 x 9/16" (2.9 x 1.2 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

View all 538 artworks →

Artwork sources (4)

505 published of 1000 catalogued · 66 with image

MoMA
474 publishedof 969 catalogued40 img
Art Institute Chicago
22 published22 img
The Met
5 published
Rijksmuseum
4 published4 img

Per-Artwork Provenance Chains (top 3)

3 entries · 1 sources

Le reflet dans la fontaine
1897 · Rijksmuseum · 1 prov
Url Pattern Extraction 2026-05-27·accession_number
Deux nouveau bois pour Sagess de Paul Verlaine
— · Rijksmuseum · 1 prov
Url Pattern Extraction 2026-05-27·accession_number
Amour
1899 · Rijksmuseum · 1 prov
Url Pattern Extraction 2026-05-27·accession_number

Record

Images

Artsy artist portrait

Artsy

Maurice Denis (Wikipedia)

Wikipedia

Relationships

10

Movements6

Art Nouveau Impressionism Post-Impressionism Contemporary Renaissance Symbolism

Collections4

Museum of Modern Art Art Institute of Chicago National Gallery of Art Christie's

Institutional

Representation & Collections

In collection

Museum of Modern Art

New York, US

In collection

Art Institute of Chicago

In collection

National Gallery of Art

Market

Auction sale history

Houses that have sold works by this artist at auction