André Derain (1880-1954), Woman in a Chemise, detail, 1906, Oil on canvas, 100 x 81 cm, Statens Museum for Kunst. |
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A Dane in Paris: Caught in the Winds of Change |
André Derain (1880-1954), Jeune Fille, 1925, Detroit Institute of Arts.
André Derain (1880-1954), The Two Sisters, 1914, Oil on canvas, 195.5 x
André Derain (1880-1954), The Black Feather Boa, 1935, Oil on canvas, 162.6 |
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Statens Museum for Kunst André Derain (1880-1954) stands alongside his close colleagues Matisse and Picasso as one of the most revolutionising re-inventors of painting to arise in the first half of the 20th century. Having spent decades delegated to the deepest, most overlooked shadows of art history, Derain's life work is now once again fully unfurled. Statens Museum for Kunst is one of the first museums in the world to present a large retrospective about the controversial and epoch-defining master painter who fell out of favour. The museum supplements its own important paintings by Derain with significant loans from museums such as the Tate Modern (London), the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the National Gallery of Art (Washington), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) and the MoMA (New York), bringing up the total number of exhibits to more than 80. The exhibition takes its point of departure in the years around André Derain's breakthrough in 1905, a year that would also become a milestone within recent art history. That was the year when Derain joined forces with his friend Matisse to create Fauvism, a vein of art that attracted plenty of attention from the start. The bold liberation of color on the canvas and the highly insistent accentuation of the painterly aspects of their art constituted a marked break with audiences' expectations. What the shocked contemporaries viewed as rampant barbarism would, however, provide crucial inspiration for subsequent generations of artists. Even so, a sense of restlessness and doubts soon assailed Derain. During the years after his breakthrough, his art shows an interest in experimenting with Primitivism, with the legacy of Cezanne, and with a simplification of form; all of which leads him to Cubism. His art moves away from the optimistic colors that previously held such an all-dominant position towards a stringency of shape and colour which, particularly in his figure compositions, has a disturbing, alienating feel. World War I abruptly interrupted Derain's artistic growth at a crucial stage. Like his kindred spirits Vlaminck, Apollinaire, Léger, and Braque, Derain had to don a soldier's uniform in 1914. He took part in some of the bloodiest battles of the war and survived, even with distinction. There is, however, no mistaking his nausea at the meaninglessness of war. "Do not think that this duty, that having been counted among the last fools for four years, makes any sense to me," he said in a letter to his mother in 1918. The following year he returned to Paris, a broken man. To his great puzzlement, however, interest in his art was steadily growing. During the 1920s Derain was one of the most celebrated and respected artists of the day. His sales even exceeded those of Matisse at this time. But Derain did not rest on his laurels; nor did he even enjoy his success. The war had left an indelible mark on his life and his art. With an unfailing curiosity and almost chronic critical attitude towards himself, he continued to explore new artistic avenues. The exhibition presents a range of remarkable works which demonstrate how Derain moved towards a more classically oriented mode of expression. His subject matters became more sculptural in scope, his palette more restrained than in earlier works. Nevertheless, their consistent originality serves only to confirm the image of Derain as an uncompromising, unique figure within French art. In contrast to responses to Picasso, Derain's changing styles and ceaseless artistic search was met with suspicion by his contemporaries — and by some among subsequent generations. Part of the reason for this suspicion rests on the fact that during World War II, Derain accepted an invitation from Nazi Germany, hoping to aid fellow artists in Germany. The decision was naïve and proved disastrous. Derain fell out of favour almost everywhere and withdrew from public life. Only in recent years have we witnessed an international resurgence in the interest in his art. The exhibition André Derain, An Outsider in French Art was curated in co-operation with the Vice Director of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, one of the world's leading experts on early French modernism. Derain was born in 1880 in Chatou, Île-de-France. He attended the Académie Camillo and studied with Eugène Carrière. At the académie he would become friends with Henri Matisse, alongside whom he was considered one of the leaders of the Fauvism movement. In 1900, he met and shared a studio with Maurice de Vlaminck and began to paint his first landscapes. Derain made his first impact on the Paris art scene in 1905, when he and Matisse displayed their highly innovative paintings at the Salon d'Automne. This exhibition led the critic Louis Vauxcelles to dub them les Fauves (the wild beasts). In March 1906, the noted art dealer Ambroise Vollard sent Derain to London to compose a series of paintings with the city as subject. In 30 paintings (29 of which are still extant), Derain put forth a portrait of London that was radically different from anything done by previous painters of the city such as Whistler or Monet. With bold colours and compositions, Derain painted multiple pictures of the Thames and Tower Bridge. To date, these London paintings remain among his most popular work. In 1907 he experimented with stone sculpture and moved to Montmartre to be near his friend Pablo Picasso and other notable artists. His work increasingly showed the influence of Paul Cézanne and of African art. Derain supplied woodcuts in primitivist style for an edition of Guillaume Apollinaire's first book of poetry, L'enchanteur pourrissant (1909), and illustrated a collection of poems by Max Jacob in 1912. At about this time Derain's work began overtly reflecting his study of the old masters. The role of color was reduced and forms became austere; the years 1911-1914 are sometimes referred to as his gothic period. In 1914 he was mobilized for military service in World War I and until his release in 1919 he would have little time for painting, although in 1916 he provided a set of illustrations for André Breton's first book, Mont de Piete. After the war, Derain won new acclaim as a leader of the renewed classicism then ascendant. With the wildness of his Fauve years behind, he was admired as an upholder of tradition. In 1919 he designed the ballet La Boutique fantasque for Diaghilev, of Ballets Russes. A success, it led to his creating many ballet designs. The 1920s marked the height of his success, as he was awarded the Carnegie Prize in 1928 and began to exhibit extensively abroad — in London, Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, and in New York City and Cincinnati, Ohio. During the German occupation of France in World War II, Derain lived in Paris and was courted by the Germans because he represented the prestige of French culture. Derain accepted an invitation to make an official visit to Germany in 1941. The Nazi propaganda machine naturally made much of Derain's presence in Germany, and after the Liberation he was branded a collaborator and ostracized by many former supporters. He died in Garches, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France. Today, paintings by Derain sell for as much as US$6 million. The London paintings were the subject of a major exhibition at the Courtauld Institute in 2005-06. |
André Derain (1880-1954), Landscape in Southern France, about 1917-27, Oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Botston. |
