RAOUL DUFY | Régates à Deauville: les yachts pavoisés

Galerie Louis Carré, Paris
Sale: Galerie Motte, Geneva, 17th October 1959, lot 69
Mme G. Compoint (sold: Loudmer Scp, Paris, 24th May 1992, lot 10)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Venice, XXVIe Biennale Internazionale d'Arte di Venezia, 1952, no. 41
Geneva, Musée de l'Athénée, De l'Impressionnisme à l'Ecole de Paris, 1960, no. 20, illustrated in the catalogue

Maurice Laffaille, Raoul Dufy, Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, Geneva, 1973, vol. II, no. 845, illustrated p. 337

Please contact the Impressionist and Modern Art Department (Phoebe.Liu@sothebys.com) for the condition report for this lot.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Raoul Dufy’s theory of ‘couleur-lumière’, which the artist developed during the advent of his Fauve years, subsequently structured his entire œuvre. As he himself describes: 'I was spontaneously led towards what was to become my real preoccupation. I had discovered a system, whose theory was this: to follow the light of the sun is a waster of time. Light in painting is something completely different: it is a light distributed throughout the composition, a "couleur-lumière"' (Dora Perez-Tibi, Dufy, New York, 1989, pp. 23-24). Régates à Deauville is a clear example of the arc of this development. With its strong horizontal composition casting a theatrical scope, Dufy depicts the harbour at Deauville as the light transitions from evening to morning and the scene prepares for the regatta of the following day. In the highly graphic style for which he is known, Dufy frees the image from the constraints of a single source of light or three-dimensional shadowing. Instead, lit from all sides, these objects are dramatically set within swatches of vivid and transparent colour, each arrangement distinguished by the vertical red masts of the boats. The canvas reads from the animated flying of the flags, articulated in dynamic fast-paced brushwork, to the deep and vivid hues of the calm and restful sea at night, to the high winds and long confident brushstrokes of the billowing morning sails. Dufy was fascinated by such occasions of human activity and the dynamic and jubilant scenes of Deauville, with its regattas and racecourses, were ones that he would return to again and again.