Biographie

1877–1953

Born in Le Havre in 1877 in a fam­i­ly of mod­est means, Raoul Dufy start­ed his art edu­ca­tion with evening class­es of pro­fes­sor Charles Lhuil­li­er at the local munic­i­pal ‘École des Beaux-Arts’. Here he met Oth­on Friesz, who became a close friend for life. In 1900, Dufy was award­ed a grant and entered the ‘École des Beaux Arts’ in Paris where he found him­self in the com­pa­ny of Oth­on Friesz again. Dufy excelled at draw­ing. Friesz exhib­it­ed reg­u­lar­ly at ‘the Salon des Artistes Français’ as of 1901 onwards. At the ‘Salon des Indépen­dants’ of 1903 the Nabis painter Mau­rice Denis bought one of his works. Dur­ing this peri­od Dufy often paint­ed along­side his friend Albert Mar­quet, in Nor­mandy, in and around Le Havre and Fécamp. Dufy also sojourned in the Proven­cal town of Mar­tigues dur­ing 1903–1904, and lat­er dur­ing 1906–1907. Dur­ing these trips, Dufy’s paint­ing devel­oped towards the new move­ment of Fau­vism in a fash­ion like­wise to his friends Oth­on Friesz and Albert Mar­quet. ‘Nu rose au fau­teuil’ dat­ed 1906 dis­played Dufy’s adher­ence to this rev­o­lu­tion­ary style invent­ed by Matisse. How­ev­er, the large Paul Cézanne ret­ro­spec­tive held in 1907 would direct Dufy for a peri­od towards Cubism. Dufy accom­pa­nied his friend George Braque to l’Estaque near Mar­seille, where both painters worked on ‘Cézan­nesque’ sub­jects in a pro­to-Cubist style, as can be wit­nessed in ‘L’Estaque’ dat­ed 1908.
Back in Paris, Dufy worked along­side André Lhote et Jean Marc­hand, both adher­ents of ear­ly Cubism, the rad­i­cal style invent­ed by Georges Braque et Pablo Picasso.

Through­out these years, Raoul Dufy was look­ing to express his own indi­vid­ual style which was final­ly estab­lished in his 1913 ‘Le Jardin aban­don­né’, paint­ed in bright colours on which he applied the form. In fact, Dufy had under­stood that colours have their own inde­pen­dent life, as they exist beyond the lim­its of the coloured object in gen­er­al but espe­cial­ly of the coloured object in movement.
Thus, Dufy com­menced the dis­so­ci­a­tion of colour and draw­ing, cre­at­ing a lev­el of free­dom and lumi­nos­i­ty, which would remain his trade­mark style through­out his career.
As his paint­ings became more and more vivid­ly coloured and his draw­ing grew increas­ing­ly free and spon­ta­neous, Dufy was met with com­mer­cial suc­cess. Until well into the 1940s, Dufy also put his immense tal­ent to the test in his work as an illus­tra­tor, mak­ing wood­cuts for Guil­laume Apollinaire’s Le Bes­ti­aire, and in his work as design­er and dec­o­ra­tor. Dufy designed fab­rics for the leg­endary cou­turi­er Jean Poiret and deliv­ered the cos­tume and decor designs for Jean Cocteau’s 1920s bal­let Bœuf sur le toit. As of 1923, Dufy also col­lab­o­rat­ed with the avant-garde Cata­lan ceram­i­cist Josep Llorens Artigas.

Dufy trav­elled through­out Europe and dis­cov­ered Moroc­co on a trip with Jean Poiret in 1925.
All his life, Dufy spent time in the South of France, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Nice. Hav­ing mar­ried the local Eugénie Emi­li­enne Bris­son, Dufy had a real affec­tion for Nice and its sur­round­ings, such as the town of Vence and the Bay of Angels coast­line. Dur­ing his fre­quent stays, Dufy would renew his favourite sub­jects of Old Nice, its horse-drawn car­riages and the city’s Casino.

Dur­ing 1936–1937, Dufy paint­ed the world’s largest paint­ing enti­tled ‘La fée Elec­tric­ité’. This mag­nif­i­cent opus cov­ered 624 m² of the Elec­tric­i­ty Pavil­ion at the Uni­ver­sal Exhi­bi­tion of 1937 held in Paris. The work is cur­rent­ly in the col­lec­tion of the ‘Musée d’Art Mod­erne de Paris’.
Dur­ing the 1930s water­colours and gouache became his paints of choice, offer­ing him the oppor­tu­ni­ty for more flu­id­i­ty and lumi­nos­i­ty. Dufy cov­ered wet paper, stretched on wood, with colours before adding the motifs once the paper had dried.
Dufy spent a large part of the War Years in Per­pig­nan, before set­tling per­ma­nent­ly in Nice.
In 1952, Dufy rep­re­sent­ed France in the Venice Bien­nale, where he was award­ed the Grand Prize for Paint­ing. Dufy passed away in the town of For­calquier, in the Alps of Haute Provence on 23 March 1953.