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He was the indispensable man, the person who brought together the wild colors of Fauvism, the plural viewpoints of cubism, interest in the arts of Africa and Asia, and an unapologetic talent for decoration. In painting, tapestry, stage design, ceramics, and textiles, Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) was creating Art Deco, a movement that only needed a name, starting in 1910.
We associate Dufy with perpetual summer and yet he grew up in the northern French port city of Le Havre, a place of gunmetal seas and overcast skies. His first encounter with something tropical came at the age of sixteen when he went to work in the office of of a Brazilian coffee importer, inspecting foreign produce on the aptly named Quai du Commerce.
By the time Dufy arrived in Paris he was twenty-three and it was 1900, the year of the International Exposition, which he did not attend. But the renewed interest in the decorative arts suited his style. Dufy did set himself up in a studio, shared with a friend from home, Othon Frieze who was also an aspiring artist. They shared the building in the rue Cortot with Suzanne Valadon and Max Jacob but Dufy was not a typical Montmartrian. In Portraits sans retouches (1952) Roland Dorgeles remembered him this way: “He was never seen untidily dressed, without a collar, slouching around in slippers like all his companions. He loathed bohemianism. His linen was always clean, his shoes well-polished, and he bore his poverty with a careless pride.”
In Terrace Overlooking The Beach (1907) Dufy used stripes of color to create a sense of space in the absence of traditional perspective, much as he delineated space by adding hatching to otherwise blank spaces in his engravings.His woodcuts for Guillaume Apollinaire's Le Bestiare ou Cortege d’Orphee in 1910 attracted the attention of Paul Poiret.
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The two set up a studio together on the Boulevard de Clichy where Dufy designed fabrics for furniture. Dufy was also in charge of manufacturing at La petite usine or The Little Factory, as they nicknamed it. Poiret later wrote “There were the two of us, Dufy and I, like Bouvard and Pecuchet, a the forefront of a new profession that would bring us new joys and new excitements.” Their standing screen (1912) of rambling roses (roses sauvages), falling leaves and dewdrops is executed with the rigorous geometry that is characteristic of Art Deco.
Also in 1912, the Lyon textile firm of Bianchini-Ferier commissioned Dufy to design fabrics for them, an association that last for two decades. The French government, too, recognized that something new, voting to sponsor an international exhibition of the decorative arts in 1915. Surely one historical "what if" is the path the new movement would have taken if war had not intervened.
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For more:
Raoul Dufy: A Celebration of Beauty, posted at The Curated Object, May 2009.
Dufy by Dora Perez-Tibi, translated from the French by Shaun Whiteside, New York, Harry N. Abrams: 1989.
2.Red and blue flowers - textile; design for Bianchini- Ferier, Hokin Gallery, Palm Beach.
2. Seahorses and Sea shells, design for Bianchini-Ferier, 1925, Flammarion, Paris.
3. Havesters, ca. 1920, Bianchini-Ferier, Metropolitan Musuem of Art, NYC.
2. Seahorses and Sea shells, design for Bianchini-Ferier, 1925, Flammarion, Paris.
3. Havesters, ca. 1920, Bianchini-Ferier, Metropolitan Musuem of Art, NYC.
5. Atelier Martine poster, ca. 1911, Fashion Institute of Design Museum, Los Angeles.
(with Paul Poiret) - Rose Paravent, for Atelier Martine, ca. 1912, Musee d'Orsay, Paris.
6. Textile design in black, brown, gold and white for Bianchini-Fereier, 1925.
7. Poiret's Models At the Races, mural, 1925, private collection, courtesy Flammarion, Paris.
8. A model wears Le Perse, evening cape by Paul Poiret, fabric by Raoul Dufy, courtesy of Flammarion, Paris.
9. Le Tennis, ca. 1920-25, Musee d'Art moderne de la ville de Paris.
10. Rose textile, three cersions, ca. 1930-33, produced by Onondaga of New York, courtesy of Flammarion, Paris.
6. Textile design in black, brown, gold and white for Bianchini-Fereier, 1925.
7. Poiret's Models At the Races, mural, 1925, private collection, courtesy Flammarion, Paris.
8. A model wears Le Perse, evening cape by Paul Poiret, fabric by Raoul Dufy, courtesy of Flammarion, Paris.
9. Le Tennis, ca. 1920-25, Musee d'Art moderne de la ville de Paris.
10. Rose textile, three cersions, ca. 1930-33, produced by Onondaga of New York, courtesy of Flammarion, Paris.