Raoul Dufy

Dufy: The allies, mascada (pañuelo) printed on silk fabric designed by Raoul Dufy in 1915

Raoul Dufy (3 June 1877 in Le Havre - 23 March 1953 near Forcalquier) was a French Fauvist and Cubist painter, graphic artist and textile designer. He developed a colorful and decorative style that became popular in designs for ceramics, textiles, and decorative schemes for public buildings. He stands out for his scenes of outdoor social events.

Biography

He was born in Le Havre, Normandy, into a family of nine. He left school at the age of fourteen to work for a coffee importing company. In 1895, when he was eighteen, he began taking art classes in the afternoon at the Le Havre School of Fine Arts. He and Othon Friesz, a school friend, studied the works of Eugène Boudin at the Le Havre museum.

In 1900, after a year of military service, Raoul was awarded a scholarship that allowed him to study for a short period at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he was a classmate of Georges Braque.

Dufy was initially influenced by Impressionist landscape painters such as Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro.

In 1902 he met Berthe Weill, who exhibited Dufy's work in her gallery. Henri Matisse's work Luxury, Calm and Voluptuousness , which Dufy saw at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905, was a revelation for the young artist, who directed his interest. towards Fauvism. The fauves (meaning "wild beasts", "wild beasts") worked with bold, unreal colors and daring shapes; rich outlines marked his work. Dufy adopted this style to which he added a vigorous and spontaneous stroke. Dufy's painting reflected this approach until around 1909, when his contact with the work of Paul Cézanne led him to adopt a somewhat more subtle technique. It was not until the year 1920, after having experimented with another style, Cubism, that Dufy developed his own distinctive approach involving skeletal structures, placed in diminished perspective, and the use of light washes of color arranged by swift brushstrokes. in a manner that came to be known as shorthand.

Little by little, his work became more friendly, joyful and luminous, showing an increasing predominance of the line, characteristics that were more evident in his watercolors.

Dufy's favorite subjects were sailing ships, with brilliant views of the French Riviera; elegant parties, musical events, horse races and other outdoor activities in fashionable places, such as Horse Races at Deauville (1931, Private Collection, Paris), L' Opera (Phillips Collection, Washington). She also painted flowers, musical instruments, and nudes.

The illustrative and decorative, optimistic and fashionable nature of much of his work has made his output less critically appraised than that of other artists who deal with a broader theme of social issues.

He made murals, such as those in the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. In 1938, Dufy finished one of the greatest paintings ever made, a huge and immensely popular paean to electricity, the fresco La Fée Electricité for the Paris International Exposition.

He made easel paintings, but also gained fame for his graphic work and in the applied arts. His illustrations for The Bestiary (1911) by Guillaume Apollinaire stand out. He also illustrated works by Stéphane Mallarmé and André Gide.

She changed the face of fashion and fabric design with her work for Paul Poiret. Commissioned by Poiret to design household linen, and also textile patterns for Poiret's clothing, Raoul Dufy was commissioned in 1909. He also made woodcuts and produced a prodigious number of tapestries and ceramic designs.

His brother Jean Dufy, who was also a painter, developed a similar style.

Dufy died near Forcalquier, France, on March 23, 1953, and was buried not far from Matisse in the monastic cemetery at Cimiez, a suburb of Nice, France.