André Derain
1880-1954
André Derain was French Fauvist painter and sculptor.
Derain was born in 1880 in Chateau, Île-de-France. In 1898, while studying to be an engineer, he began to attend painting classes at the Académie Camillo and studied with Eugène Carrière. In 1900, he met and shared a studio with Maurice de Vlaminck and began to paint his first landscapes. He also met Matisse.
Derain made his first impact on the Paris art scene in 1905, when he and Matisse displayed their highly innovative paintings at the Salon d'Automne. This exhibition led the critic Louis Vauxcelles to dub them les Fauves or the wild beasts. In March 1906, the noted art dealer Ambroise Vollard sent Derain to London to compose a series of paintings with the city as subject. In 30 paintings, Derain put forth a portrait of London that was radically different from anything done by previous painters of the city such as Whistler or Monet. With bold colors and compositions, Derain painted multiple pictures of the Thames and Tower Bridge. These London paintings remain among his most popular work.
In 1907 he experimented with stone sculpture and moved to Montmartre to be near his friend Pablo Picasso and other notable artists. His work increasingly showed the influence of Paul Cézanne and of African art.
Derain's work began overtly reflecting his study of the old masters and the role of color was reduced and forms became austere. The years 1911-1914 are sometimes referred to as his gothic period. After the war, Derain won new acclaim as a leader of the renewed classicism then ascendant. With the wildness of his Fauve years far behind, he was admired as an upholder of tradition.
The 1920s marked the height of his success, as he was awarded the Carnegie Prize in 1928 and began to exhibit extensively abroad, in London, Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, and in New York City and Cincinnati, Ohio.
During the German occupation of France in World War II, Derain was branded a collaborator and ostracized by many former supporters.
He died in Garches, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, in 1954.
|
|
