Raoul Dufy

Private Collection, Switzerland

Galerie Cazeau-Béraudière, Paris (acquired from the above)

Private Collection (acquired from the above and sold: Sotheby's, New York, November 4, 2004, lot 19)

Acquired at the above sale 

West Palm Beach, Norton Museum of Art; Memphis, The Dixon Gallery and Gardens; New Orleans Museum of Art; San Antonio, The Marions Koogler McNay Art Museum, Raoul Dufy: Last of the Fauves, 1999-2000, no. 21, illustrated in color in the catalogue

A spectacularly colorful depiction of Bastille Day is the subject of Dufy's bold composition, completed at the height of his involvement with the Fauve painters.  The pageantry of the national festival was a perfect subject for the expressive aesthetic favored by the Fauves, and Dufy captures the spirit of the day with his dynamic depiction here.   The canvas dates from 1906, only months after Dufy and his colleagues Matisse, Derain, Braque and Vlaminck exhibited their brilliantly-colorful and wildly expressive canvases at the Salon d'Automne.  Their unorthodox approach to landscape painting caused a sensation, prompting one critic to discredit their creative production as that of 'wild beasts.'  With that comment, a movement was born, and the artists were emboldened to continue painting in the expressive and highly emotional style for which they are now renowned.

“Dufy championed the Fauve cause most assiduously of the three artists (Dufy, Friesz and Braque), while continuing to paint his familiar motifs.  His paintings of 1905—06 seem to be invigorated with color, no doubt the product of having experienced the sensational Fauve salon… Dufy’s festive views of local flag-draped streets, festooned for patriotic holidays, provided an especially good opportunity to use saturated color” (Alvin Martin and Judi Freeman, “The Distant Cousins in Normandy: Braque, Dufy and Friesz,” The Fauve Landscape, New York, 1990, p. 221-22).

With respect to the specific subject of the present work, Freeman wrote that Dufy, “shared the Impressionist enthusiasm for the annual transformation of cities and towns for Bastille Day on July 14 and other flag-waving celebrations.  Where as Manet and Monet occasionally painted Parisian boulevards adorned with flags for patriotic holidays, Dufy and Marquet regularly depicted the festivities.  For the Impressionist the flag-draped streets provided an opportunity to show a colorful festival of modern life, occasionally tinged with political overtones.  For Dufy and Marquet the holiday provided motifs that could be situated within the Impressionist tradition but more loosely rendered, with the sketchier brushwork and scattered, almost random color” (op. cit., p. 39).