Raoul Dufy

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(b Le Havre, 3 June 1877; d Forcalquier, Basses-Alpes, 23 March 1953). French painter, printmaker and decorative artist. From the age of 14 he was employed as a book-keeper, but at the same time he developed his innate gift for drawing at evening classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre,given by the Neo-classical painter Charles Lhuillier (?1824-98). He discovered the work of Eug?ne Boudin, Poussin and Delacroix, whose Justice of Trajan (1840; Rouen, Mus. B.-A.) was 'a revelation and certainly one of the most violent impressions' of his life (Lassaigne, Eng. trans., p. 16). In 1900, with a grant from Le Havre, he joined his friend Othon Friesz in Paris and enrolled at the Ecole Nationale Sup?rieure des Beaux-Arts in the studio of L?on Bonnat. At the Mus?e du Louvre he studied the art of Claude Lorrain, to whom he painted several Homages between 1927 and 1947 (e.g. 1927; Nice, Mus. Mass?na). His encounter with works by van Gogh at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune and with Impressionism at Durand-Ruel is reflected in such early works as Beach at St Adresse (1904; Paris, Pompidou).

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Although widely celebrated as a French painter associated with the colour-intensive work of Henri Matisse and the Fauves in the early 20th century, Dufy also made a significant contribution to the decorative arts, particularly textile designs, which he produced for the Lyons firm of Atuyer, Bianchini & Férier (later Bianchini-Férier) from about 1912. After training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre he went on in 1896 to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Immersed at the centre of the contemporary art world he was variously influenced by Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism. In 1909 he made a series of woodcuts for the Bestaire, a book of poems by Guillaume Apollinaire, that in turn led to a series of commissions from the couturier Paul Poiret and his Atelier Martine, including printed textiles for dresses characterized by their bold colours and strong designs. A long association with Bianchini-Férier followed this, lasting till 1928. He also worked on ceramic decoration, working closely with the Catalan potter José Lloréns from about 1923 to 1930. In the 1930s Dufy also produced a number of designs for large-scale tapestries and furniture fabrics for French patrons. He designed textiles for foreign clients such as the American Onandaga company and also produced decorative engraving schemes for the Corning Glass Company.

Dufy, Raoul (1877-1953). French painter. With his painting, mural decorations, theatre and fabric designs, ceramics, and posters, Dufy was a major source of the modern visual sensibility. The wood-cuts and lithographs which he produced to illustrate works by Apollinaire, Mallarmé, Daudet, Gide, and Colette, among others, constitute some of the most important modern examples of the creative collaboration between word and image.

[James Kearns]

Raoul Dufy^[p] (3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colourful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics, textiles and decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted for scenes of open-air social events.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Work outside of painting 3 Works 4 Notes

Biography

Raoul Dufy was born at Le Havre, in Normandy, one of a family of nine members. He left school at the age of 14 to work in a coffee importing company. In 1895 when he was 18, he started evening classes in art at Le Havre École des Beaux-Arts. He and Othon Friesz, a school friend, studied the works of Eugène Boudin in the museum in Le Havre.

Raoul Dufy, Regatta at Cowes, (1934), Washington D.C. National Gallery of Art.

In 1900, after a year of military service, Raoul won a scholarship enabling him to attend the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, in Paris, where he was a fellow student with Georges Braque. The impressionist landscapists, such as Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, influenced him.

Introduced to Berthe Weill in 1902, she showed his work in her gallery. Henri Matisse's Luxe, Calme et Volupté, which Dufy saw at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905, was a revelation to the young artist and directed his interest towards Fauvism. Les Fauves (wild beasts) emphasised bright colour and rich bold contours in their work, and Dufy’s painting reflects this approach until about 1909, when contact with the work of Paul Cézanne led him to adopt a somewhat subtler technique. It was not until 1920, after he had flirted briefly with yet another style, cubism, that Dufy developed his own distinctive approach involving skeletal structures, arranged in a diminished perspective, and the use of light washes of colour put on by swift brush strokes in a manner that came to be known as stenographic.

Dufy's cheerful oils and watercolours depict events of the time period, including yachting scenes, sparkling views of the French Riviera, chic parties and musical events. The optimistic and fashionably decorative and illustrative nature of much of his work has meant that his output is less highly critically valued than artists who treat a wider range of social concerns.

In 1938, Dufy completed one of the largest paintings ever done, a huge and immensely popular epic to electricity, the fresco La Fée Electricité for the Exposition Internationale in Paris.

Dufy also acquired a reputation as an illustrator and an applied artist. He changed the face of local fashion and fabric design with his work for Paul Poiret. He painted murals for public buildings, as well as produced a prodigious number of tapestries and ceramic designs. His plates appear in books by Guillaume Apollinaire, Stéphane Mallarmé and André Gide.

Dufy died near Forcalquier, France, on 23 March 1953, and was buried not far from Matisse in the Cimiez Monastery Cemetery in Cimiez, a suburb of the city of Nice, France.

Work outside of painting

In 1909, Raoul Dufy was commissioned by Paul Poiret to design stationery for the house, and also designed textile patterns used in Poiret's garments.^[1]

Works

• Hommage à Mozart, (Web Gallery Private Art Collection)
• Le 14 juillet au Havre, rue pavoisée, (1906, Web Gallery Private Art Collection)
• French modern art exhibition 1939 treasure 3 National Library of Latvia displayed via The European Library
• Works by Raoul Dufy (public domain in Canada)

Notes

[p] - The name Raoul Dufy is pronounced as "Rah-ool Dew-fee".^[2]

1. ^ Hay, Susan (1999). From Paris to Providence, Fashion, Art and the Tirocchi Dressmakers' Shop, 1915-1947 ("Modernism in Fabric: Art and the Tirocchi Textiles"). Rhode Island School of Design. http://tirocchi.stg.brown.edu/essays/print/hay_fabric.html. 
2. ^ "C.U.S.D. Art Masterpiece Manual", Mary Lynne Lasure, p.37, web: CUSD-artm-PDF.

v • d • e Fauvism Leaders Henri Matisse · André Derain Others Alice Bailly · Georges Braque · Charles Camoin · Kees van Dongen · Raoul Dufy · Henri Evenepoel · Othon Friesz · Henri Manguin · Albert Marquet · Jean Puy · Georges Rouault · Maurice de Vlaminck Paintings Green Stripe · Woman with a Hat Influences Paul Cezanne · Paul Gauguin · Vincent van Gogh · Gustave Moreau (teacher) · Georges Seurat · Paul Signac · Neo-impressionism · Pointillism Influenced Die Brücke · Neo-Fauvism See also Louis Vauxcelles (critic)

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