Derain & Fauvism
Title: Fishing Boats, Collioure, 1905
Artist: André Derain (French 1880-1954)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 65.1 x 81.3
Permanent Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Image Courtesy: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
Painter, printmaker, fauvist, theatrical designer; all describe André Derain.
André Derain
An Outsider in French Art
Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK)
Copenhagen, Denmark
February 10 - May 13, 2007
Derain was at the forefront of the Fauvism art movement in Paris along with Henri Matisse. The Fauvist
movement focused on vibrant but unnatural colors in painting, created thanks to several French artists who
worked together at the turn of the 19th Century. Fauvism was the first major avant-garde movement in art, a forerunner to Cubism that
followed closely on its heels. The Fauvists first exhibited together at the 1905 Salon d'Automne;
the Progressive art Salon begun two years earlier. The group earned their name from a remark made by the French art
critic Louis Vauxcelles who, observing a Renaissance-themed sculpture, cried
'Donatello au milieu des fauves!'. It was not praise. The critic pointed to the one sculpture and
derided the rest of the work proclaiming it Donatello among the wild beasts.
Almost all the artists involved in the 1905 Fauvism movement and exhibit used the style as a launch pad for their
further exploration of their individual styles.
Title: The Two Barges, 1906
Artist: André Derain (French 1880-1954)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 81 x 100
Permanent Collection: Centre Pompidou, Paris
Image Courtesy: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
Following the Great War Derain's style changed completely, he began to favor classical themes in his art. The works from this period met with the public's approval bringing
wealth and fame to Derain. His sales exceeded that of his good friend and former Fauvism mate Henri Matisse.
Title: Woman in a Chemise, 1906
Artist: André Derain (French 1880-1954)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 100 x 81
Photograph: SMK Photo
Permanent Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
Image Courtesy: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
The pieces created between the two World Wars have a sculptural feel along with a muted palette. Derain, though opting for a classical vein,
never lost his originality.
However his fans in the avant-garde community were not as enthralled with Derain's new style.
A leading magazine, Les Chroniques du jour published an article in
its January 1931 edition arguing André Derain: For or Against. The pro and anti Derain forces
continued throughout the rest of his life aided by a monumentally bad decision the artist made during the Nazi occupation of France.
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Title: The Two Sisters, 1914
Artist: André Derain (French 1880-1954)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 195.5 x 130.5
Photograph: SMK Photo
Permanent Collection: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
Image Courtesy: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
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Far more controversy came to the artist following the Second World War. He lived in occupied Paris.
The Nazis had branded surrealist and cubist art movements as degenerate.
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The Third Reich went
so far as to organize a 1937 exhibit of Degenerate art just after an exhibit of Hitler's personally chosen art masterpieces.
The latter exhibit was a dismal failure. The crowds flocked
to see the Degenerate art. With over 3 million viewers it was a huge success not at all what the Nazis had planned.
For the Nazis Derain's new style was appreciated. Derain accepted their
invitation to speak to German artists. It was a foolish decision, one that in hindsight would cause him nothing but grief.
After the war the artist
found himself having to defend himself against charges of collusion.
Many people ostracized him given that the Nazis appreciated his classical French style. He withdrew into
a private life.
Title: The Artist and his Family, 1920-1921
Artist: André Derain (French 1880-1954)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 117 x 89
Private Collection
Image Courtesy: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
Less than a decade following the war, his popularity was still bleak, while walking in Chambourcy a truck struck him. He died from his injuries.
Title: Still Life with Rabbit, 1938
Artist: André Derain (French 1880-1954)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 89.2 x 116.2
Permanent Collection: Centre Pompidou, Paris
Image Courtesy: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
Those two elements, his alteration in style and popularity among the Nazi regime, caused the artist and his works to fall out of favor. Copenhagen's
Statens Museum for Kunst has organized one of the largest and only retrospective's of André Derain's life's work.
Title: Portait of André Derain
Image Courtesy: Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
The museum's own Derain works are
augmented with loans from Tate Modern in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Hermitage in
St. Petersburg, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA in New York among others in this exhibit of over eighty items.
André Derain
An Outsider in French Art
Statens Museum for Kunst:
February 10 - May 13, 2007
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