Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/742308
6 Celebrated as one of the great colourists of the 20th century, Raoul Dufy forged his career with vibrant images of the bourgeoisie. While rejecting the strict rules of the Paris Salon, Dufy's radical treatment of these pleasure-filled scenes is often overlooked in favour of his dazzling palette and lively design. However, from regattas and horse races to receptions and orchestral recitals, this exhibition looks beyond the joie de vivre that has defined Dufy to expose the true genius of this painter of interwar society. Born in Le Havre on the northern coast of France in 1877, Dufy watched with fascination the ships coming into the harbour and the crowds of tourists beside the water's edge. His sister Germaine recalled that from an early age, 'Raoul spent his days on the maritime boulevards or in Sainte- Adresse. Often he rented a boat and went to sea. He came back with his pockets stuffed with sketches and locked himself in his room…' After leaving school, Dufy continued to nurture his artistic curiosity at Le Havre's municipal art college before taking up a scholarship in Paris at the École National Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1900. Surrounded by the stimulus of the avant-garde in Paris Dufy was particularly influenced by the daring colours of the Fauves, with whom he later exhibited, following his encounter with Henri Matisse's Luxe, Calme et Volupté (1904) at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905. This electric shock of inspiration encouraged the young artist to experiment with a wilder palette to which he later, in his collaborations with the French couturier Paul Poiret, introduced design and an abandonment of perspective and natural order. A keen observer of contemporary French life, Dufy can be seen as the inheritor to Charles Baudelaire's 'flâneur', drifting through the boulevards 'Dufy is an observer coupled with a visionary' Waldemar-George and crowds of Paris in the canvases of Manet and Degas. Enthralled by this spectacle of the new bourgeoisie in works such as Georges Seurat's La Grande Jatte (1884-1886), Dufy recorded the kaleidoscopic sections of society and their desire to see and be seen. These works act as a crucial insight into society between the First and Second World Wars and the modern era. Dufy's images of life in the Third Republic also offered a sense of optimism in the shadow of war and mirrored his wealthy clientele's taste for the glamorous casinos and the shaded coastlines of the French Riviera. Critic Louis Vauxcelles described these hopeful works saying, 'In a time when one lives in fear of the next day, or the newspapers are full of horrible killing, here is the singer of joy, the painter of mild grace, freshness, of cheerfulness'. The iconic La Fée Électricité mural at the Palais de la Lumière for the Paris International Exposition in 1937 epitomizes Dufy's fascination with modernity and the new position of the middle classes. This work defined the industry and energy of the interwar period as well as Dufy's mature style with its rapid dancing line and wash of vivid colour. With the occupation of Paris by the Nazis in 1940, Dufy fled to the south of France and then to the Pyrenees where he continued his observation of life on the Côte d'Azur. Following a miraculous operation for severe arthritis, Dufy received the International Grand Prix for painting at the 26 th Venice Biennale in 1952. Throughout Dufy's career, he returned to these same subjects of society that established his reputation as a truly inventive chronicler of modern life.