Raoul Dufy

Fauvist painter Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) captured the pleasures of modern life with vivid color and rapid, calligraphic brushwork that makes his paintings instantly recognizable. Born in Le Havre, Normandy, the second of eleven children, he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and fell under the spell of Henri Matisse after seeing his 1905 painting Luxe, Calme et Volupté at the Salon des Indépendants. That encounter converted Dufy to Fauvism's bold, expressive palette, transforming his approach to color forever. He briefly experimented with Cubism alongside Georges Braque in 1908-1909 but soon returned to his lighter, more decorative approach. His signature style emerged in the 1920s: thin washes of blue and other bright colors overlaid with quick, sketchy outlines that seem to dance across the surface.

Dufy's subjects ranged from regattas and racetracks to orchestras and Riviera beaches, always depicting scenes of leisure and pleasure with an airy spontaneity. Beyond canvas, he designed textiles for fashion houses including Paul Poiret, created ceramics, illustrated Guillaume Apollinaire's Bestiary (1910), and worked on tapestries. His largest commission was La Fée Électricité (The Electricity Fairy) for the 1937 Paris World's Fair, a mural measuring 600 square meters that featured portraits of 110 scientists and thinkers who contributed to electricity, along with elements of mythology and allegory. In 1952, a year before his death, he received the grand prize for painting at the Venice Biennale in recognition of his lifetime achievement. He was buried near Matisse in the Cimiez Monastery Cemetery in Nice. The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris hold significant collections of his work.