Raoul Dufy
“Mere et Enfant”
Not dated

Name: “Mere et Enfant”
Brand: Raoul Dufy
Price: 950 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Mother and Child etching done after Raoul Dufy. Limited edition of 50 only. Not dated. Condition is excellent. Image size is 12.5 by 11 inches. Sheet size is 18.25 by 15 inches. Nicely gallery framed. Overall framed measurements are 26 by 22.75 inches. Provenance: A Sarasota, Florida collector. Raoul Dufy was born in Le Havre, where he began to study art at night while working as an errand boy during the day. When he obtained a small scholarship in 1900 he went to Paris to study with Bonnat. About five years later, he met Matisse and the other Fauve painters, whose color delighted him. Dufy experimented with Fauvism, made some attempts at Cubism, and in the years between 1905 and 1920, earned his living by working on a museum staff designing fabrics, and doing some book illustration. Painting at Honfleur toward the end of World War I, Dufy observed that line moves more rapidly than color does and that the human eye receives the sensation of color more easily than that of movement, thus holding this mental image longer. The painter's perception led to his development of that lightning-fast, calligraphic, short, curved line with which his pen or pencil was forever to move across paper. It also led to his application of color in "diffusions" that were not strictly confined to outlines but sometimes swept across a work in broad bands coloring objects perhaps half-green and half-blue and thus making them part of a lively, moving world held together in tight compositions in which both color and line dance and sparkle. To this understanding of movement and color Raoul Dufy added a love of poetry, music, drawing, painting, and of simply being alive. His personal symbolism, sensitive touch, and feeling for color create a world of fashionable pleasure from which he made a natural transition to textile design, ceramic decoration, and decorative painting. By 1925, his reputation solidly established, he was commissioned to paint murals for many French public buildings. He began to suffer from multiple-arthritis in 1937, and moved to southwestern France for his health. When the disease progressed to the point that he could no longer paint, he came to the United States for cortisone treatment in 1947. After the treatment and a trip to Arizona, Dufy, although not cured, was well enough to return to France and to continue painting until his death in 1953.

Creator:

Raoul Dufy (1877-1953, French)

Creation Year:

Not dated

Dimensions:

Height: 12.5 in (31.75 cm)Width: 11 in (27.94 cm)Depth: 1.25 in (3.18 cm)

Medium:

Archival Paper,Etching

Period:

Late 20th Century

Condition:

Gallery Location:

Southampton, NY

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU14112122732

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Raoul Dufy

Raoul Dufy was a renowned French Fauvist painter, famous for his colorful, decorative designs. He was born in Le Havre, Normandy, in 1877. Dufy had a simple upbringing, leaving school at 14 to work at a Brazilian coffee-importing company. His formal artistic education began when he was eighteen at Le Havre's École des Beaux-Arts, where he took evening art classes. He continued to paint within the purlieu of Le Havre and was greatly inspired by the Impressionist landscape painters Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro. In 1900, after serving in the military for one year, Dufy won a scholarship to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Dufy began painting watercolors of the Norman landscapes but was soon widely celebrated for his brightly colored and bold contoured paintings – in dialogue with the Fauvist style. He remained faithful to Fauvism until Paul Cézanne’s work guided him to embrace a subtler aesthetic. This new mode of sobriety saw his work return to a lighter style, which he celebrated through rapid inscription-like drawings over vivid backgrounds of color washes.

The rise of Cubism in Paris during the first two decades of the 20th century influenced him to develop a systematic approach that was later known as stenographics. Using this he experimented with foreshortened perspective, thin washes of paint and skeletal structures. In this style, he portrayed the lavish scenes of the French Riviera, leisureliness of the period, and chic revelries. Dufy was also fascinated by other amusements such as regattas, horse races and concerts and loved to depict the excitement and commotion of the crowds.

Dufy had his first exhibition in 1901 at the Salon des Artistes Français, following a string of exhibitions over the following years. In 1906 he took part in the Cercle de l’Art Moderne Exhibition in Le Havre with artists Georges Braque, Henri Matisse and Henri Charles Manguin. Dufy was given his first retrospective in 1921 at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune and in 1932 his first painting was accepted into a national collection. He celebrated two large commissions for the 1937 Exposition Internationals des Artes et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne. The most notable of the two was the adornment for the Pavilion of Light and Electricity. He was commissioned with the task to illustrate the history of electricity from the classical era to its current position in 20th century developments. He painted La Fée électricité, a huge fresco which was donated to the Musée d’Art Moderne in 1964. In 1952 he represented France at the 26th Venice Biennale, where he won the Gran Premio. A year later he died aged 75, of polyarthritis, an illness he had been suffering from since 1937.

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(Biography provided by Stern Pissarro Gallery)