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Raoul Dufy

French, 1877-1953

Raoul Dufy was a renowned French Fauvist painter, famous for his colorful, decorative designs. He was born in Le Havre, Normandy, in 1877. Dufy had a simple upbringing, leaving school at 14 to work at a Brazilian coffee-importing company. His formal artistic education began when he was eighteen at Le Havre's École des Beaux-Arts, where he took evening art classes. He continued to paint within the purlieu of Le Havre and was greatly inspired by the Impressionist landscape painters Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro. In 1900, after serving in the military for one year, Dufy won a scholarship to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Dufy began painting watercolors of the Norman landscapes but was soon widely celebrated for his brightly colored and bold contoured paintings – in dialogue with the Fauvist style. He remained faithful to Fauvism until Paul Cézanne’s work guided him to embrace a subtler aesthetic. This new mode of sobriety saw his work return to a lighter style, which he celebrated through rapid inscription-like drawings over vivid backgrounds of color washes.

The rise of Cubism in Paris during the first two decades of the 20th century influenced him to develop a systematic approach that was later known as stenographics. Using this he experimented with foreshortened perspective, thin washes of paint and skeletal structures. In this style, he portrayed the lavish scenes of the French Riviera, leisureliness of the period, and chic revelries. Dufy was also fascinated by other amusements such as regattas, horse races and concerts and loved to depict the excitement and commotion of the crowds.

Dufy had his first exhibition in 1901 at the Salon des Artistes Français, following a string of exhibitions over the following years. In 1906 he took part in the Cercle de l’Art Moderne Exhibition in Le Havre with artists Georges Braque, Henri Matisse and Henri Charles Manguin. Dufy was given his first retrospective in 1921 at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune and in 1932 his first painting was accepted into a national collection. He celebrated two large commissions for the 1937 Exposition Internationals des Artes et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne. The most notable of the two was the adornment for the Pavilion of Light and Electricity. He was commissioned with the task to illustrate the history of electricity from the classical era to its current position in 20th century developments. He painted La Fée électricité, a huge fresco which was donated to the Musée d’Art Moderne in 1964. In 1952 he represented France at the 26th Venice Biennale, where he won the Gran Premio. A year later he died aged 75, of polyarthritis, an illness he had been suffering from since 1937.

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(Biography provided by Stern Pissarro Gallery)

Orchestra : Intermission - Lithograph (Mourlot)
By Raoul Dufy
Located in Paris, IDF
Raoul DUFY (1877-1953) Orchestra : Intermission Lithograph (Mourlot workshop) Printed signature in the plate On vellum 30 x 24 cm (c. 11.8 x 9.4 in) Excellent condition
Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Geometric Raoul Dufy

Materials

Lithograph

Summer : Harvest Time - Original Lithograph
By Raoul Dufy
Located in Paris, IDF
Raoul DUFY Summer : Harvest Time, 1953 Original Lithograph with stencil watercolor With printed signature in the plate On Arches vellum 28 x 38 cm (c. 11 x 15 inch) Very good condi...
Category

1950s Modern Raoul Dufy

Materials

Lithograph

1953 original exhibition poster by Raoul Dufy at Musée National d'Art Moderne
By Raoul Dufy
Located in PARIS, FR
The 1953 original exhibition poster by Raoul Dufy for the Musée National d'Art Moderne is a vibrant and captivating piece that captures the essence of Dufy's iconic style and celebra...
Category

1950s Raoul Dufy

Materials

Paper, Lithograph

Colorful Bouquet of Flowers - Original lithograph - 1965
By Raoul Dufy
Located in Paris, IDF
Raoul DUFY Colorful Bouquet of Flowers Stone lithograph in colors Printed signature in the plate On Arches vellum 38 x 28 cm (c. 15 x 11 in) INFORMATION : Edited for the portfolio...
Category

1960s Modern Raoul Dufy

Materials

Lithograph

Projet de Tissus - Fauvist Flowers Watercolor & Gouache by Raoul Dufy
By Raoul Dufy
Located in Marlow, Buckinghamshire
Botanical watercolour and gouache on paper circa 1920 by French fauvist painter Raoul Dufy. The work depicts flowers in red, blue and green. This work was executed by Dufy as a fabric design. Dimensions: Framed: 19.5"x19.5" Unframed: 12"x12" Provenance: Private collection of works by Raoul Dufy for Bianchini Ferier Bianchini Ferrier Collection - Christie's London - July 2001 SF Fall Show Raoul Dufy was one of a family of nine children, including five sisters and a younger brother, Jean Dufy, also destined to become a painter. Their father was an accountant in the employ of a major company in Le Havre. The Dufy family was musically gifted: his father was an organist, as was his brother Léon, and his youngest brother Gaston was an accomplished flautist who later worked as a music critic in Paris. Raoul Dufy's studies were interrupted at the age of 14, when he had to contribute to the family income. He took a job with an importer of Brazilian coffee, but still found time from 1892 to attend evening courses in drawing and composition at the local college of fine arts under Charles Marie Lhullier, former teacher of Othon Friesz and Georges Braque. He spent his free time in museums, admiring the paintings of Eugène Boudin in Le Havre and The Justice of Trajan in Rouen. A municipal scholarship enabled him to leave for Paris in 1900, where he lodged initially with Othon Friesz. He was accepted by the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under Léon Bonnat, whose innate conservatism prompted Dufy to remark later that it was 'good to be at the Beaux-Arts providing one knew one could leave'. And leave he did, four years later, embarking with friends and fellow students on the rounds of the major Paris galleries - Ambroise Vollard, Durand-Ruel, Eugène Blot and Berheim-Jeune. For Dufy and his contemporaries, Impressionism represented a rejection of sterile academism in favour of the open-air canvases of Manet, the light and bright colours of the Impressionists, and, beyond them, the daringly innovative work of Gauguin and Van Gogh, Seurat, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec and others. Dufy was an out-and-out individualist, however, and was not tempted to imitate any of these artists. He produced, between 1935 and 1937, Fée Electricité (Spirit of Electricity), the emblem for the French utilities company Electricité de France (EDF). Dufy visited the USA for the first time in 1937, as a member of the Carnegie Prize jury. In 1940, the outbreak of war (and his increasingly rheumatic condition) persuaded him to settle in Nice. When he eventually returned to Paris 10 years later, his rheumatism had become so debilitating that he immediately left for Boston to follow a course of pioneering anti-cortisone treatment. He continued working, however, spending time first in Harvard and then in New York City before moving to the drier climate of Tucson, Arizona. The cortisone treatment was by and large unsuccessful, although he did recover the use of his fingers. He returned to Paris in 1951 and decided to settle in Forcalquier, where the climate was more clement. Within a short time, however, he was wheelchair-bound. He died in Forcalquier in March 1953 and was buried in Cimiez. Between 1895 and 1898, Raoul Dufy painted watercolours of landscapes near his native Le Havre and around Honfleur and Falaise. By the turn of the century, however, he was already painting certain subjects that were to become hallmarks of his work - flag-decked Parisian cityscapes, Normandy beaches teeming with visitors, regattas and the like, including one of his better-known early works, Landing Stage at Ste-Adresse. By 1905-1906 Friesz, Braque, Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck, Van Dongen and Rouault were described collectively as Fauves (the wild beasts). What they had in common was a desire to innovate, but they felt constrained nonetheless to meet formally to set out the guiding principles of what promised to be a new 'movement'. Dufy quickly established that those principles were acceptable; moreover, he was most impressed by one particular painting by Henri Matisse ( Luxury, Calm and Voluptuousness) which, to Dufy, embodied both novelty and a sense of artistic freedom. Dufy promptly aligned himself with the Fauves. Together with Albert Marquet in particular, he spent his time travelling the Normandy coast and painting views similar...
Category

1920s Fauvist Raoul Dufy

Materials

Paper, Watercolor, Gouache

Normandy Countryside - Original Lithograph
By Raoul Dufy
Located in Paris, IDF
Raoul DUFY Normandy Countryside , 1953 Original Lithograph with stencil watercolor On Arches vellum 28 x 38 cm (c. 11 x 15 inch) Excellent condition
Category

1950s Modern Raoul Dufy

Materials

Lithograph

Post Impressionist Lithograh entitled “LE HAVRE” by Raoul Dufy
By Raoul Dufy
Located in New York, NY
This losely rendered and highly narrative Post Impressionist Lithograh entitled “LE HAVRE” by Raoul Dufy originates from France, Circa 1930. A striking composition, this lithograph f...
Category

1930s Post-Impressionist Raoul Dufy

Materials

Lithograph

Original SNCF French Travel Poster Normandie by Raoul Dufy 1954
By Raoul Dufy
Located in Boca Raton, FL
This very attractive scenic poster was created by the French Railway Authority in the post World War II era to promote visitor traffic to the French countryside in Normandie. Located...
Category

1950s Raoul Dufy

Materials

Lithograph

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Raoul Dufy Sale Prices

Sold DateSold PriceCategoryMediumCreation Year
2025$650Prints and MultiplesLithograph1960
2025$570Landscape PrintsLithograph1969
2025$13,937Still-life Drawings and Watercolors, Still-life PaintingsPaper, Watercolor, Gouachec.1920
2025$350Prints and MultiplesEtching1930
2025$315Figurative PrintsLithograph1953
2025$990Nude Prints, Figurative PrintsEtchingc.1930
2025$650Figurative Prints, Landscape PrintsLithograph, Stencil1954
2025$575Figurative Prints, Landscape PrintsLithograph1965
2025$265Figurative PrintsLithograph1953
2024$400Figurative Prints, Landscape PrintsLithograph1965
2024$1,860PrintsPaper1950s
2024$744Figurative Prints, Portrait PrintsEtching1940
2024$2,000Landscape Prints, Figurative PrintsLithograph1930
2024$349Prints and MultiplesLithograph1960
2024$430Still-life PrintsLithograph1953
2024$900Abstract Prints, Landscape PrintsLithograph1969
2024$1,298Figurative Prints, Landscape PrintsOffset Print1954
2024$452Figurative PrintsLithograph1930s
2024$3,500Still-life Prints, More PrintsLithographc. 1948
2024$384Figurative PrintsEtching1953
$1,397
Average sold price of items in the past 12 months
$265-$13,937
Sold price range of items in the past 12 months

Artists Similar to Raoul Dufy

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Find a wide variety of authentic Raoul Dufy art available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of art to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of blue, purple and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Raoul Dufy in lithograph, etching, paper and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large Raoul Dufy art, so small editions measuring 6 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Georges Braque, Georges Rouault, and Henry Moore. Raoul Dufy art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $77 and tops out at $610,250, while the average work can sell for $756.
Questions About Raoul Dufy
  • 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022
    To paint, Raoul Dufy spread thin layers of quick-drying paint over a white background. Then, he would sketch objects over top using curvy, wavy lines. On 1stDibs, find a collection of Raoul Dufy art from some of the world’s top sellers.
  • 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022
    Painter, drawer, designer and printmaker Raoul Dufy was greatly inspired by impressionists like Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet. In later years, he took inspiration from Henri Matisse’s Luxe, Calme et Volupté. And even later in his work, he evolved again after connecting with the work of Paul Cézanne and Cubism. After this era, he developed his own style and distinctive artistic approach. On 1stDibs, find a variety of original artwork from top artists.
  • 1stDibs ExpertJune 6, 2024
    No one knows for sure how many paintings Raoul Dufy painted. However, more than 160 of his works are known. Some of his most famous pieces include Boats at Martigues, Bathers, The Mexican Musicians, The Kessler Family on Horseback and Regatta at Cowes. On 1stDibs, explore a range of Raoul Dufy art.

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