New York, NY—Nahmad Contemporary celebrates the enduring impact of modern French painter Raoul Dufy (1877–1953, France) at the Independent 20th Century art fair September 5–8, 2024. Created between 1920 and 1951, this selection of paintings and works on paper exemplifies the artist’s practice at the height of his career through his final creative years and is distinguished by a vibrant palette, sinuous lines, and animated brushstrokes. This presentation captures the full realization of the multidisciplinary artist’s distinct and compelling aesthetic and illuminates his profound yet underrecognized legacy.

Dufy began his art career in Paris alongside the Fauves in the wake of Impressionism. His early works embody bold Fauvist hues and incorporate the experimental painting techniques characteristic of both avant-garde movements. Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, and Camille Pissarro were among Dufy’s antecedents, while his contemporaries included Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. Dufy also worked as a textile designer, illustrator, and printmaker, collaborating, for example, with legendary couturier Paul Poiret in the 1910s. During this period of intense exploration, he masterfully combined design techniques of hue, ornamentation, and composition with an emphasis on light and color to create the revolutionary surfaces of his oils and gouaches.

The significance of light and color in Dufy’s work is underscored by the artist’s “couleur-lumière” theory, which he developed between 1906 and 1907. Dufy explained, “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 waste of time. Light in painting is something completely different: it is a light distributed throughout the composition, a ‘couleur-lumière.’” While he would apply this focus on heightened ambient color and light to his entire oeuvre, Dufy honed his distinctive style in the early 1920s by incorporating energetic, undulating lines with bright swathes of paint against a white ground. His distinct subject matter—centering on elegant, leisurely scenes, from seaside and countryside vistas, horse races, and regattas to parades and concert halls—is equally iconic.

While Dufy’s work garnered great admiration during his lifetime and despite his work belonging to major collections worldwide (such as the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris; Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Tate, London, to name a few), his significance to modern art has been eclipsed by his contemporaries. Increasingly, the art world has begun to reassess the magnitude of his impact. In 2003, coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the artist’s death, several comprehensive exhibitions in France were devoted to his work (including Raoul Dufy: Un autre regard and Raoul Dufy: du motif à la couleur at the Museum of Modern Art André Malraux). In addition, the exhibition Raoul Dufy: Exterior to Interior at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, in 2015 not only examined the sentimental and introspective side of his work but also his progress in dismantling the hierarchy between the decorative and fine arts. 

With numerous contemporary artists citing his influence and their admiration for his work, Dufy may best be described today as an “artist’s artist.” As such, the lively, joyful, and luminous paintings of this enduring artist are once again stepping into the spotlight.