Raoul Dufy

A Journey into Fauvism

Raoul Dufy was a French painter associated with the Fauvist movement. He gained recognition for his vibrant and decorative style, which became popular in various forms, such as textile designs, and public building decorations. Dufy is most remembered for his artwork depicting outdoor social gatherings.

In addition to painting, he was skilled in various other fields, including drawing, printmaking, book illustration, scenic design, furniture design, and planning public spaces.

Raoul was born in Normandy, France. One of nine children, he started work at age of 14 for a coffee company. The Normandy coast, sea and ships, provided a subject for drawings and watercolours and aged 18 he took evening classes at Le Havres Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

In 1900, after a year of military service, he won a scholarship at the Beaux Arts where he was influenced by the work of the Impressionists such as Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro. Dufy was introduced to Berthe Weill in 1902
and showed his work in her gallery.

Landscape near Vence in Provence By Raoul Dufy Circa 1908

In 1905 a painting by Matisse ‘Luxe, Calme et Velupte’ inspired him enourmously - it prompted him to say ... ”that miracle of the imagination translated into design and colour”. and this encouraged him towards the style of ‘Fauvism’ or ‘Les Fauves’ (French for the wild beasts), a style of art where the emphasis is on painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values.

The Fauve style was nature based, simple shapes, and personal expression. Using bold colour free from tonal modelling, characterized by seemingly wild brush work and strident colors, their subject matter had a high degree of simplification and abstraction.

Dufy’s painting reflected this aesthetic until about 1909 when the work of Paul Cézanne led him to adopt a subtler technique.

To supplement his income he produced woodcuts as illustrations for poems, and in 1911 met Paul Poiret, a fashion designer and with his support began painting fabrics. He produced many designs for printed fabrics which were donned by other influential designers.

Around 1920, after also dabbling in Cubism, Dufy really began to develop his own distinctive style, encompassing skeletal structures using foreshortened perspective, coupled with rapid, thin color washes. Outdoor contemporary scenes on the French Riviera provided rich subject matter.

This method later became recognized as stenographic. In his oils and watercolors, he frequently depicted contemporary scenes, including yachting events, elegant social gatherings, and broad views of the Riviera. For the 1937 Exposition Internationale in Paris, Dufy produced ‘La Fée Electricité,’ one of the largest paintings of its time, a widely acclaimed artwork celebrating electricity, executed in oil on plywood.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Dufy exhibited at the annual Salon des Tuileries in Paris. WIth growing popularity he exhibited regularly from this time and traveled to Italy, Morocco and America producing designs for ceramics, tapestries, theatre sets and fabrics. All the while he continued to paint, and depite battling severe arthritis he recieved the grand prize for painting at the Venice Biennale in 1952.

He died in France, on 23 March 1953, and was buried near Matisse in Cimiez, Nice.

Rembrandt