Andre Derain was a member of "Les Fauves" -- painters of considerable daring and imagination. Vivid and colorful landscapes characterize their work, paintings which stun the eye by virtue of the artist's audacious use of color.

Derain was born in 1880 in Chatou, near Paris, and at the age of eighteen he entered the Academie Carriere where he met Matisse, Vlaminck and Marquet. Derain served in the military between 1900 and 1904 and following his discharge he began to experiment with bold, pure color. In 1905 the Academie group exhibited landscapes of such shocking color that the group was widely criticized and termed "Les Fauves", or the wild beasts.

Matisse and Derain sought an art of sensuous, almost primitive, beauty. Rather than intensify their landscapes through light and color, as had been the case previously, both artists now executed imaginary landscapes peopled by exotic damcers, bathers and lovers. These works were influenced by Gauguin's South Seas works of the 1890's and display a hedonistic quality unseen in the work of either artist to that date.

For Derain, this interest in Primitivism signaled a sudden and brief shift from oil to watercolor. Fauvism was a short-lived movement and by 1910 Derain's interests had shifted to the Cubism of Picasso and Braque. Following service in World War I, the artist worked in an increasingly eclectic manner attempting to fuse traditional subject matter with a modern style.

Derain died in an automobile accident in Garches, near Paris, in 1954.

Source: Bulletin, July-August, 1983.