Background
Raoul Dufy was born on June 3, 1877, in Le Havre, France, into a large family.
École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris
Raoul Dufy was born on June 3, 1877, in Le Havre, France, into a large family.
In 1900 Dufy enrolled at the École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris, and frequented the atelier of painter-collector Léon Bonnat.
Raoul Dufy left school at the age of fourteen to work in a coffee-importing company. In 1900, after a year of military service, Dufy won a scholarship to the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he crossed paths with Othon Friesz. He concentrated on improving his drawing skills. The impressionist landscape painters, such as Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, influenced Dufy profoundly. His first exhibition at the Exhibition of French Artists took place in 1901.
Introduced to Berthe Weill in 1902, Dufy showed his work in her gallery. Then he exhibited again in 1903 at the Salon des Indépendants. The painter, Maurice Denis, even bought one of his paintings. Dufy continued to paint, often in the vicinity of Le Havre, and, in particular, on the beach at Sainte-Adresse, made famous by Eugène Boudin and Claude Monet. In 1904, with his friend, Albert Marquet, he worked in Fecamp on the English Channel (La Manche).
Henri Matisse's "Luxe, Calme et Volupté", which Dufy saw at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905, was a revelation to the young artist, and it directed his interests towards Fauvism. "Les Fauves" emphasized bright color and bold contours in their work. Dufy's painting reflected this aesthetic until about 1909, when contact with the work of Paul Cézanne led him to adopt a somewhat subtler technique. It was not until 1920, however, after he had flirted briefly with yet another style, cubism, that Dufy developed his own distinctive approach. It involved skeletal structures, arranged with foreshortened perspective, and the use of thin washes of color applied quickly, in a manner that came to be known as stenographic.
Dufy's cheerful oils and watercolors depict events of the time period, including yachting scenes, sparkling views of the French Riviera, chic parties, and musical events. The optimistic, fashionably decorative, and illustrative nature of much of his work has meant that his output has been less highly valued critically than the works of artists who have addressed a wider range of social concerns.
Dufy completed one of the largest paintings ever contemplated, a huge and immensely popular ode to electricity, the fresco "La Fée Electricité" for the 1937 Exposition Internationale in Paris. Dufy also acquired a reputation as an illustrator and as a commercial artist. He painted murals for public buildings; he also produced a huge number of tapestries and ceramic designs. His plates appear in books by Guillaume Apollinaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and André Gide. In 1909, Raoul Dufy was commissioned by Paul Poiret to design stationery for the house, and after 1912 designed textile patterns for Bianchini-Ferier used in Poiret's and Charvet's garments.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Dufy exhibited at the annual Salon des Tuileries in Paris. By 1950, his hands were struck with rheumatoid arthritis and his ability to paint diminished, as he had to fasten the brush to his hand. In April he went to Boston to undergo an experimental treatment with cortisone and corticotropin, based on the work of Philip S. Hench. It proved successful, and some of his next works were dedicated to the doctors and researchers in the United States. In 1952 he received the grand prize for painting in the 26th Venice Biennale. Dufy died at Forcalquier, France, on March 23, 1953, of intestinal bleeding, which was a likely result of his continuous treatment. He was buried near Matisse in the Cimiez Monastery Cemetery in Cimiez, a suburb of the city of Nice.
The Empavesado yacht
The Two Models
Still life with Bananas
Portrait of the Artist's Sister, Suzanne Dufy
Boats in Le Havre
Self-Portrait
Open Window
Trees
Bouquet of roses
Henley Regatta
Sandy beach of Sainte-Adresse
Carnival on the Grands Boulevards
Casino of Nice
The nautical Club with Cowes
Landscape in Falaise
Arcades at L'Estaque
Landscape of Falaise
The Botanical Garden
The Pleasures of Peace: Dance (The Journey to the Islands)
Homage To Claude Lorrain
The trapeze artists
Boats in Marseille
Landscape with red and yellow
The Grid
The Mexican Musicians
Self Portrait
Portrait of Madame Dufy
Flags
View of a Port
The Artist and His Model in the Studio at Le Havre
Clowns and Musicians
Claudine from back
Console With Two Windows
Treading the blue sky
Phonography
The Beach of Sainte-Adresse
Homage to Claude Debussy
View of Paris from Monmartre
L'avenue du Bois
The Violin
The Pantheon and St. Etienne-du-Mont
Regatta at Cowes
Martigues
The square in Hyeres
Palm Trees At Martigues (Homage To Gauguin)
Large Bather
Theatre in Martigues
The Basin of Deauville
Oarsmen on the Marne
Riders
The Port of Le Havre
Boats at Martigues
Anemones
Pink bunch
Red quartet
Seated nude
Parisian Bridge
Design for fabric
The Fishermen
The Bullfight
The Jetty at Sainte-Adresse
The Wheatfield
Birdcage
Cubist Landscape with Haystacks
Martigues
The sea in Deauville
4th of July
View of Sainte-Adresse
The River
Nude
Electricity
The house in Marrakech
Fountain in Avignon
View From An Open Window
Houses in Munich
Standing Nude
Marie Max
Bather
The Beach at Havre
Trouville
Study of the 'Dance'
Jeanne with Flowers
The Red Concert
Still life with violin: Hommage to Bach
Indian woman
Still life
Umbrellas
Love
The casino of Nice
Terrace of a Café
Bouquet of flowers
Travelling Show
The Woman in Pink
Houses in Trouville
The Surrender of the Frigate
Naked
The English yacht
Yacht club
Le Cavalier arabe (Le Cavalier blanc)
Villerville
Interior with Indian Woman
Gallant green
Interior with fruit bowl
Landscape of Montfort l Amaury
The beach and pier at Trouville
Arcades at Vallauris
Vence
Indian Model in the Studio at l'impasse Guelman
Hommage to Mozart
Portrait of Mrs. Dufy
The Hunt (Design for fabric)
The Beach at Sainte Adresse
Anglers
The Racecourse of Deauville
Amphitrite
Chateau and Horses
Trees at Estaque
The Thoroughbred
Street Decked with Flags
The Wheat Field
The Mediterranean
Storm at Sainte Adresse
The Port of Palais, Belle Ile
Harfleur
Posters at Trouville
Homage to Mozart
The Port of Martigues
Paris
The Yellow Console with a Violin
Window with coloured glasses
Landscape of Esterel
Hotel Sube
Acrobats
Nude with seashell
Gladioli
Fishermen
The Saint Gervais Church
The Park of Saint-Cloud
Anemones
Fishing (Design for fabric)
The Neapolitan Fisherman
The Onion Market
Aubusson tapestry
Bouquet of flowers
Female Nude, bust
The Louis-Philippe Bridge and the Saint Gervais Church
Bathers
The Duke of Reichstadt
The studio on Seguier street
Frouzette And Her Father
The Mexican Orchestra
Anemones
The Casino
Sailboat at Sainte-Adresse
The Fish Market, Marseille
Pedistal Table, Rue Seguier
Pier of Le Havre in the Evening
Races With Goodwwood
Pierre Geismar
The fisherman with net
Men Fishing
Raoul Dufy adhered to the artistic traditions of Post-Impressionism and Cubism. For Dufy, the artist’s vision made the object ‘no longer part of nature but of art’. It was an idea that paved the way, not just for abstraction, but Conceptualism also, and left behind it one of the most jubilant bodies of work in 2oth-century art.
Quotations: “Blue is the only color which maintains its own character in all its tones it will always stay blue. Whereas yellow is blackened in its shades, and fades away when lightened; red when darkened becomes brown, and diluted with white is no longer red, but another color — pink.”
Quotes from others about the person
One must meditate about pleasure. Raoul Dufy is pleasure.