By André Derain
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Andre Derain was born in 1880 at Chatou, which was then a kind of artists' colony at the gates of Paris. His father was a successful patissier (pastry chef) and a town councillor and Derain was given a middle-class education. By the time he was forty, he was one of the most successful painters in Paris. But by the end of World War II, Derain's name usually came up only to be dismissed with a shrug.
One of the original "wild beasts" (Fauves), he has been difficult to appraise; but at its best, his work has also been almost impossible not to like. Only seemingly did Derain belong with his contemporaries; essentially he was a traditionalist. The trauma of his years in the trenches had turned him toward what is timeless.
Derain's father was prosperous enough to want his son to have the most respectable of careers, preferably engineering. But Andre was already painting, and his best friend was the young ruffian Maurice Vlaminck, whom Papa Derain would not let into the house. Then one day an older painter by the name of Henri Matisse saw some of Andre's work, spoke so glowingly of his talents and prospects that Derain's father finally relented. Maurice and Andre rented a shack on an island in the Seine and their careers finally began.
In 1906 Derain met Picasso and soon afterward signed a contract with Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, Picasso's dealer. He married on the strength of his new financial security and with his wife, Alice, went to live in Montmartre, where his friendship with Picasso continued. He and Alice made a remarkable couple; he was described as slim, elegant, with an English chic and she as being calm and beautiful.
Derain was at one moment a pointillist, painting with dots...
Category
Modern 1910s Nude Drawings and Watercolors