Raoul Dufy 1935 “View La Marne”

Title

Raoul Dufy 1935 “View La Marne”

Description

Color Lithography from Raoul Dufy 1935 with the title ‘View La Marne’.

dated 1935

Artist

Dufy (1877-1953)

Raoul Dufy (1877 - 1953) was a French Fauvist painter, a brilliant draughtsman and inspired colorist. Raoul Dufy initially attended evening classes at the art school in Le Havre. In 1895, he received a scholarship from his home town to attend the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris, where he became friends with Othon Friesz. From there, Dufy moved to the studio of Léon Bonnat on a scholarship. In 1903, he had an exhibition at the Salon de Indépendants in Paris. The painting Luxe, Calme et Volupté by Henri Matisse “converted” him to Fauvism in 1905. In 1909, he visited Munich with Friesz and came under the influence of Paul Cézanne. As painting did not provide him with the necessary income, Dufy earned his living with ceramic works, woodcuts and designs for tapestries. Together with his brother Jean, he worked for the well-known textile atelier “Bianchini-Férier”. It was only when he changed his style somewhat in the mid-1920s and then in 1937, moving from a lighter, elegant art to an expressive, monumental style, that he gained recognition. For the Paris World Exhibition in 1937, he was able to decorate the Pavillon de la lumière (Pavilion of Light) and painted La Fée électricité, at 600 m² the largest picture in the world at the time. From Nice, where he stayed with his wife for several years, he traveled to Saint-Tropez, where he painted the Hotel Sube (1926) and produced ink drawings: Le port de Saint-Tropez and the Statue du Bailli de Suffren. In 1937, Dufy's print “Sea Battle” was confiscated from the State Museum in Saarbrücken and destroyed as part of the Nazi “Degenerate Art” campaign. Today, Dufy's works are part of important collections, including the MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Historical Description

The Marne River, situated on the eastern outskirts of Paris, was a favourite subject for artists throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, including Marquet, Cézanne and Pissarro.Dufy was attracted to its pleasure-filled scenes, particularly of leisure at the river Marne. 'View la Marne' belongs to an important series of 19 oil paintings on the theme, including 'Nogent-Sur Marne' (1935) in The Art Institute, Chicago and the Musée du Havre’s 'Nogent, Pont Rose et Chemin de Fer' (1935/6). As one of the final paintings from the series, the composition is filled with great detail and has been painted in Dufy’s characteristically free and colourful style.