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9 From the window of his studio in Sainte-Adresse, Dufy made a number of paintings of the coast during the early 1920s, key examples of which can now be found in MoMA, New York; Musée des Beaux Ar ts, Dijon and Musée des Beaux Ar ts Jules-Cheret, Nice. La fenêtre is an exceptional example from this series, framed by the shutters and decorative balustrade of an open window. This motif became an icon of early modernism. Par ticularly in the work of Matisse in Collioure during the summer of 1905 and Camoin in St Tropez, this theme of the open window became representative of a new ar t form, grounded in the traditional Renaissance trope that a painting is like a window onto the soul. Using the open window to frame the interior and exterior spaces of his composition, Dufy highlights the human activity along the beach of Sainte-Adresse where bathers prepare to dive into the sea and cleaners sweep the beach. Dufy's extremely abstract brushwork for the waves of the sea within this context of a figurative work also makes La fenêtre intensely modern. Much like Léger and Braque, with whom he worked closely at L'Estaque in 1908, Dufy reinterprets a traditional subject revealing his pivotal contribution to 20th century ar t. La fenêtre,1923 Signed lower right 'Raoul Dufy' Oil on canvas 36 1/4 x 28 3/4 in, 92 x 73 cm Provenance Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the artist) Walter Taylor, London (purchased in 1924) Private collection, Europe (acquired at Anon. sale; Sotheby's 4 July 1979, lot 94) Private collection Exhibitions London, Mayor Gallery, Mr. Walter Taylor's Collection of Modern French and English Paintings and Drawings, September 1936, no.19 London, Hayward Gallery, Raoul Dufy, November 1983 - February 1984, p.162, no.50 (illus. in colour p.36) Martigny, Le Fondation Pierre Giannadda, Raoul Dufy, January - June 1997, no.175 Toronto, Art Galery of Ontario, on extended loan, 1979-2001 Literature Paris, Christian Zervos, Raoul Dufy, 1928, no.37 (illus. pl.37 as Les pêcheurs dans les roches) Geneva, Maurice Laffaille, Raoul Dufy, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Tome III, 1976, p.249, no.1227 (illus.)