Raoul Dufy (1877-1953)(after)
NAME: Nu Couché (1930)
ENGLISH NAME: Reclining Nude
MEDIUM: Lithography on Arches paper
SIGNATURE: Signed in Plate
SIZES: Image Size: 49cm (19.3 in) x 42cm (16.5 in)
Overall Size: 65cm (25.5 in) x 50cm (19.7 in)
IMAGE is ACTUAL WORK
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(translated from the Pierre Levy collection)
Reclining Nude
From Raoul Dufy, we know thirteen nudes lying on a sheet with a thousand folds of a bluish white clacier. They were painted between 1928 and 1930.
His model at the time was a plump young woman with a charming face that he liked to paint in reserved attitudes, sometimes shy, never immodest and always peaceful. He was then looking for what was called in-depth drawing. He wanted to obtain the shape, the weight and the modeling by the only means of a pure line, cleverly distorted in sometimes astonishing shortcuts.
It was the time of his large India ink drawings where the pen runs, attentive, freehand, resting only after having, in a single stroke, looped the outline and enclosed the volume. It was also the time of his crowded and violently colored Workshops, with nude models standing this time on rich oriental rugs or stretched out on an old-fashioned sofa whose rounded lines matched feminine curves.
Raoul Dufy (1877 - 1953) was french painter and the brother of Jean Dufy. But he was not only a painter, but a draftsman, printmaker, book illustrator, scenic designer, furniture designer and planner of public spaces. Dufy grew up in a large family from Le Havre in Normandy, France. At eighteen years old, he started night classes at the Le Havre École des Beaux-Arts school. There he met Othon Friesz who became his lifelong friend. During this part of his life, he was painting mostly landscapes.
In 1900 he won a scholarship to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He joined up with Friesz again. In addition, he was heavily influenced at the time by Claude Monet and Camille Pissaro. He began exhibiting at Berthe Weill’s gallery and the Salon des Indépendants which started to boost his confidence. It is said that Henri Matisse’s Lux, Calme et Volupté was what caused him to move toward Fauvism. He spend the next 15 years exploring this genre, but in 1920 he was testing Cubism. As he developed his own approach to this style, he created vibrant oils and watercolors with yacht scenes, the French Riviera, parties and musical events.
Dufy is known for his very large painting, the fresco La Fée Electricité for the Paris Expo in 1937. He continued to exhibit in the 1940s and early ‘50s until his hands were struck with rheumatoid arthritis and he struggled to paint. He went to the US for an experimental treatment and it was successful which allowed him to continue with his painting until his death.
Raoul Dufy died in 1953 and is buried near Matisse.