Flower Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Botanical watercolour and gouache on paper circa 1920 by French fauvist painter Raoul Dufy. The work depicts flowers in red, blue and green. This work was executed by Dufy as a fabric design. Dimensions: Framed: 19.5"x19.5" Unframed: 12"x12" Provenance: Private collection of works by Raoul Dufy for Bianchini Ferier Bianchini Ferrier Collection - Christie's London - July 2001 SF Fall Show Raoul Dufy was one of a family of nine children, including five sisters and a younger brother, Jean Dufy, also destined to become a painter. Their father was an accountant in the employ of a major company in Le Havre. The Dufy family was musically gifted: his father was an organist, as was his brother Léon, and his youngest brother Gaston was an accomplished flautist who later worked as a music critic in Paris. Raoul Dufy's studies were interrupted at the age of 14, when he had to contribute to the family income. He took a job with an importer of Brazilian coffee, but still found time from 1892 to attend evening courses in drawing and composition at the local college of fine arts under Charles Marie Lhullier, former teacher of Othon Friesz and Georges Braque. He spent his free time in museums, admiring the paintings of Eugène Boudin in Le Havre and The Justice of Trajan in Rouen. A municipal scholarship enabled him to leave for Paris in 1900, where he lodged initially with Othon Friesz. He was accepted by the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under Léon Bonnat, whose innate conservatism prompted Dufy to remark later that it was 'good to be at the Beaux-Arts providing one knew one could leave'. And leave he did, four years later, embarking with friends and fellow students on the rounds of the major Paris galleries - Ambroise Vollard, Durand-Ruel, Eugène Blot and Berheim-Jeune. For Dufy and his contemporaries, Impressionism represented a rejection of sterile academism in favour of the open-air canvases of Manet, the light and bright colours of the Impressionists, and, beyond them, the daringly innovative work of Gauguin and Van Gogh, Seurat, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec and others. Dufy was an out-and-out individualist, however, and was not tempted to imitate any of these artists. He produced, between 1935 and 1937, Fée Electricité (Spirit of Electricity), the emblem for the French utilities company Electricité de France (EDF). Dufy visited the USA for the first time in 1937, as a member of the Carnegie Prize jury. In 1940, the outbreak of war (and his increasingly rheumatic condition) persuaded him to settle in Nice. When he eventually returned to Paris 10 years later, his rheumatism had become so debilitating that he immediately left for Boston to follow a course of pioneering anti-cortisone treatment. He continued working, however, spending time first in Harvard and then in New York City before moving to the drier climate of Tucson, Arizona. The cortisone treatment was by and large unsuccessful, although he did recover the use of his fingers. He returned to Paris in 1951 and decided to settle in Forcalquier, where the climate was more clement. Within a short time, however, he was wheelchair-bound. He died in Forcalquier in March 1953 and was buried in Cimiez. Between 1895 and 1898, Raoul Dufy painted watercolours of landscapes near his native Le Havre and around Honfleur and Falaise. By the turn of the century, however, he was already painting certain subjects that were to become hallmarks of his work - flag-decked Parisian cityscapes, Normandy beaches teeming with visitors, regattas and the like, including one of his better-known early works, Landing Stage at Ste-Adresse. By 1905-1906 Friesz, Braque, Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck, Van Dongen and Rouault were described collectively as Fauves (the wild beasts). What they had in common was a desire to innovate, but they felt constrained nonetheless to meet formally to set out the guiding principles of what promised to be a new 'movement'. Dufy quickly established that those principles were acceptable; moreover, he was most impressed by one particular painting by Henri Matisse ( Luxury, Calm and Voluptuousness) which, to Dufy, embodied both novelty and a sense of artistic freedom. Dufy promptly aligned himself with the Fauves. Together with Albert Marquet in particular, he spent his time travelling the Normandy coast and painting views similar...

-In light of new tariffs, we’ve applied a 20% discount off the market price of this piece to support our collectors in facing potential added costs. At the gallery, we work closely w...

'Portrait of a Young Man in a Red Tie', gouache and ink on art paper, French School (1956). Step into the world of mid-20th century European art with a striking portrait that capture...

"Take Only What You Need" is an original work by Stephen Namara, a Kenyan-born, African-American artist renowned for his expressive paintings and masterful drawings rendered in ink, ...

'La Montera', gouache, watercolour and ink on art paper, by Pierre Ambrogiani (circa 1960s). The artist created many artworks with bullfighting as theme. In this case, a single torer...

African Mama - Vintage Illustration in Ink and Watercolor A charming illustration, by Irene Pattinson (American, 1909-1999), shows a woman with a...

'Portrait of Boy in a Chair', gouache on art paper, by Raymond Debiève (circa 1960s). Here the artist paints a young boy, very probably his son, Vincent, sitting in a chair posing fo...

From the Series Maestro Jean Michel Basquiat, 2017 Watercolor, pencil on paper Size: 50 H x 45 W cm framed size 70 H x 62 W x 4 D cm Unique Wood frame ______ Emerson Cáceres, artis...

Maurice Brianchon (French 1899-1979) Interior scene (backstage at the theater) Watercolor and gouache on paper Signed lower right “Brianchon” Frame measures 16 X 17.5. Sight Size 8.5...

Vogue USA, Fashion Illustration. Meticulously drawn in a descriptive and yet creative way. Antonio's full mastery of his art is on full display. Signed lower right. The work is arch...

Signed upper right, 'C. Mariani' for Carlo Maria Mariani (Italian, 1931-2021) and dated 1959. Framed dimensions: 22.5 x 1.5 x 17.5 inches A native of Rome, Carlo Mariani first studied there at the Academy of Fine Arts where he was influenced by the prevailing styles of Hyper-Realism and Conceptualism. In 1994, he moved to New York City where he began to paint figural landscapes in a traditional, neo-classical style. The 1990s brought Mariani wide recognition and numerous honors, as he represented Italy three times at the Venice Biennale. Additionally, in 1998, he received the prestigious Antonio Feltrinelli Award for lifetime achievement in painting. Mariani continues to be best known for his refined and painterly, Renaissance technique. He was a central figure in Rome’s avant-garde in the 1970s and is widely regarded as an influential forerunner of 1980's Postmodernism. He achieved an international reputation, beginning in the early 1980s, for his arcane and, often, controversial paintings...

Drawing on paper is his basic work tool, some are sketches of his surviving works, others are sketches of moments he documents. Undefined by medium, Celso Castro’s works each carry...