Gaston Coppens Art

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...

Nude Of Woman is a charcoal drawing on brown paper. Unsigned. Good conditions except for some folds and some rips on the corners. Prolific and eclectic, the Italian Gio Colucci (Florence, 1892 – Paris, 1974), also known in France as Geo Colucci, was a painter, engraver, illustrator, ceramist, and sculptor. From 1921, he exhibited his engravings in various salons. He worked with French publishers specialized in the illustrated books of high bibliophilia, and delivered series of remarkable prints for texts by Barbey d'Aurevilly, Pierre Loti, Guy Maupassant...

A Very Finely Drawn, 1930s Modern Figure Study of a Standing Female Nude Model (Torso) by Notable Chicago Modern Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An early charcoal drawing by...

A Fabulous, Finely Rendered 1945 Modern Seated Female Nude by Noted Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). The drawing is charcoal on paper and dates from 1945. Artwork siz...

A Fine, Mid-Century Modern 1950s Academic Anatomical Figure Study of Arms, Legs and Feet by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). A well executed ink composite figu...

Here for your consideration is a very well executed oil pastel on archival paper by the well known French artist, Marcel Vertes. Signed lower right. Condition is excellent. Circa 1...

A study in grace and subtle sensuality, this evocative 1934 black pencil and charcoal drawing by French artist Marie Louise Simard (1886–1963) showcases a nude female figure with scu...

Biagio Civale, Italian/American (1936 - ) - Pot of Flowers, Medium: Tempera on paper, signed lower right, Size: 24 x 18 in. (60.96 x 45.72 cm)

Mary Frank (British/American, b. 1933) Chant, 1984 Charcoal and pastel on paper 41 3/4 x 29 3/4 in. Framed: 46 1/2 x 34 1/4x 2 in. Signed and dated lower right: Mary Frank 84 Midtown Payson Galleries Label Verso Mary Frank is known for creating stoneware sculptures that have the appearance of terra cotta fragments dug up at an archaeological site. Sometimes a half-finished relief head...

James Tower. English ( b.1919 - d.1988 ). Still Life Of Cut Flowers In A Pottery Jug, 1945. Watercolor & Ink. Signed & Dated Lower Right. Image size 13.2 inches x 10 inches ( 33.5c...

This is a wonderful drawing by one of America's most treasured artists, Chaim Gross. Throughout his lifetime Gross has gone through tragedy and a real test of faith however, he has t...

Posing Nude is a charcoal drawing realized by Jean Chapin in the 1950s. Good condition and aged with slight folding on the margins. Jean Chapin is a French painter and lithographer...