Biographie

1877–1968

Born near Rot­ter­dam in the Nether­lands, Kees Van Don­gen start­ed draw­ing at a very young age and entered the Roy­al Acad­e­my of Fine Arts in Rot­ter­dam aged sixteen.
Fol­low­ing a first vis­it to Paris in 1897, Van Don­gen set­tled in the French cap­i­tal in 1899. He chose a stu­dio at the leg­endary Bateau-Lavoir in Mont­martre, from where he built a rep­u­ta­tion in anar­chist cir­cles with his satir­i­cal draw­ings for their publications.
In 1901, Van Don­gen mar­ried Augus­ta Pre­itinger, a fel­low Dutch painter.
Fas­ci­nat­ed by the demi-monde of Mont­martre, Van Don­gen decid­ed to make them the sub­jects of his paintings.

In 1904, Van Don­gen exhib­it­ed at the ‘Salon des Indépen­dants’ and asso­ci­at­ed with Mau­rice de Vlam­inck and Hen­ri Matisse. The same year, art deal­er Ambroise Vol­lard organ­ised a one-man show. Van Don­gen par­tic­i­pat­ed in the ‘Salon d’Automne’ of 1905, where Fau­vism was first revealed to the pub­lic in the works of Hen­ri Matisse, Hen­ri Man­guin, André Derain, Mau­rice de Vlam­inck, Charles Camoin and Albert Mar­quet, grouped togeth­er in de infa­mous room VII. Van Dongen’s work hung in a dif­fer­ent room but was equal­ly crit­i­cised for the unusu­al­ly graph­ic use of a vivid fauve palette in por­trai­ture. Some­how Van Don­gen bridged the move­ments of Fau­vism and Ger­man Expressionism.

In 1912, upon his return to Paris from a trip to Spain and Moroc­co, Van Don­gen left Mont­martre and moved to Mont­par­nasse, the cra­dle of Mod­ern Art. At the ‘Salon d’Automne’ of 1913, his paint­ing Le châle espag­nole, a full-length nude por­trait of his wife proud­ly dis­play­ing a throw was deemed too scan­dalous and was tak­en down. This inci­dent aug­ment­ed Van Dongen’s noto­ri­ety and the Parisian beau-monde flocked to his stu­dio to have their por­traits paint­ed. As such Van Don­gen became acquaint­ed with Paris’ socialites and met the eccen­tric fash­ion direc­tor Léo Jas­my. They embarked on a ten-year affair and togeth­er they set up home in vil­la Saïd near the Bois de Boulogne in 1916.
After the Great War, Van Don­gen con­tin­ued his career as the painter of choice of the rich and beau­ti­ful which he por­trayed in a very pleas­ing way. Three large female por­traits announced his break from pure Fau­vism in favour of a stylised nat­u­ral­is­tic way. Dur­ing the roar­ing 1920s Van Don­gen became the por­traitist of the so-called ‘cock­tail gen­er­a­tion’, the hedo­nis­tic wealthy who indulged in the glit­ter of the exu­ber­ant art scene. Van Don­gen bought a lux­u­ri­ous prop­er­ty near the smart Place Wagram, where he paint­ed and lav­ish­ly enter­tained the sub­jects of his portraits.

In 1927, the ret­ro­spec­tive of his work in Ams­ter­dam man­i­fest­ed Van Dongen’s inter­na­tion­al renown. Van Don­gen took the French nation­al­i­ty in 1929. Dur­ing the 1930s Van Don­gen received few­er com­mis­sions and by the end of the Sec­ond World War, he moved to Mona­co. Dur­ing the mid-1950s Van Don­gen regained his sta­tus of soci­ety painter. In 1967, the ‘Musée d’Art Mod­erne de Paris’ host­ed a large ret­ro­spec­tive, show­ing the impor­tance of his work in gen­er­al and of his Fauve por­traits in par­tic­u­lar. Van Don­gen died in Mona­co in 1968.