Raoul Dufy
La Baigneuse aux Papillons
c.1930

Name: La Baigneuse aux Papillons
Brand: Raoul Dufy
Price: 1550 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

This artwork titled "La Baigneuse aux Papillons" c.1930 in an etching on paper by French artist Raoul Dufy, 1877-1963. Unsigned as issue. Printed/published in 1960 by La Chalcographie du Louvre. The image (plate mark) is 13.5 x 20 inches, framed size is 20 x 33 inches. Custom framed in a wooden black and gold frame, with gold color bevel and fabric matting. It is in very good condition, paper is slightly toned by age. About the artist: Raoul Dufy was born on June 3, 1877 in Le Havre, France and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, as well as with Othon Friesz and Lhuillier. Although inspired by Matisse and resembling him in his devotion to rhythmic line, pure color and decorative effects, Dufy was a painter of great independence and originality. During the first half of the 20th century, the Fauves, the Cubists, and the Surrealists dominated the art of France. Throughout all of these developments, Dufy went on painting the most highly civilized subjects he could find, the elegant holiday places and events of the rich. Dufy's palette and his taste for beauty eventually led him to the world of fashion and fabric design. He formed a close relationship with the couturier Paul Poiret, for whose fashion house he designed a logo; he also designed silk fabrics. This association bought him financial security. He eventually became one of the most sought-after illustrators of his day and designed sets and costumes for the theatre as well as upholstery and wallpaper. One of the largest paintings of modern times was the gigantic mural done by Raoul Dufy for the pavillion of electricity at the 1937 International Exposition in Paris. The finished work, depicting the history and importance of electricity to the 20th century, was 197 feet wide and 33 feet high. Dufy christened it "La Fee Electricite". After the Exposition closed, Dufy's mural, too big for exhibition, was stored away from public view in 250 sections. Dufy worried about its neglect and sought some way to keep his gigantic work on view. The answer was provided by a Paris pulisher, who proposed that Dufy reproduce the mural as a color lithograph. Dufy set to work in 1951 and shortly before his death in 1953 completed the most ambitious lithography project ever undertaken: three feet high by twenty feet wide, done in twenty-two colors and printed in ten sheets. He was devoted to America and the American scene, to which he paid two visits. The latter of these visits was in 1951, for medical treatment of his arthritis. Crippling as his ailment was, Dufy did not allow it to halt his work or to diminish his great joy in life. Treatment of his arthritis by injecting cortisone improved his condition so much that he was able to return to his farmhouse in Provence where he painted several hours a day. He died in 1953 at the age of seventy-five. Museum Collections Include: Hermitage, St. Petersburg; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Accademica Carrara, Bergamo; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland; Museum of Provencal Art & History, Grasse; Tate Gallery, London; Musee Royal des Beaux-Arts, Copenhagen; Musee des Beaux-Arts, Le Havre; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris

Creator:

Raoul Dufy (1877-1953, French)

Creation Year:

c.1930

Dimensions:

Height: 20 in (50.8 cm)Width: 33 in (83.82 cm)Depth: 1.1 in (2.8 cm)

Medium:

Etching

Movement & Style:

Fauvist

Period:

Mid-20th Century

Condition:

Gallery Location:

San Francisco, CA

Reference Number:

Seller: duf/bai/pap/011stDibs: LU66635905512

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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)