Artist of the Month (1): Raoul Dufy

After publishing 100 Paintings of the Month, I am starting a slightly different series: Artist of the Month. 

Self-portrait 1899

The first artist is Raoul Dufy, (1877-1953). Born at Le Havre, France, he was noted for brightly coloured and highly decorative scenes of luxury and pleasure. He went to Paris in 1900 to attend the École des Beaux-Arts. He painted in an Impressionist style in his early work, but by 1905 he had begun to employ the broad brushstrokes and bright colours typical of the Fauve artists. They favoured painterly quality and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. He started to design textiles and ceramics but in the early 1920s Dufy rededicated himself to painting and began to produce what are now his best-known works. His distinctive style is characterised by bright colours thinly spread over a white ground, with objects sketchily delineated by sensuously undulating lines. Dufy took as his subjects scenes of recreation and spectacle, including horse races, regattas, parades, and concerts.  Though very popular, his lively, carefree, elegant paintings have been criticised as occasionally bordering on the superficial. They fill me with joy!

Still Life 1928

Window Opening on Nice 1928

Anemones 1953

Venice 1937

Textile Design 1920

I'm listening to Smokey Blues Away by New Generation who later became The Sullivan Brothers. Do you recognise what piece of classical music the melody is taken from? Listen here.

 

The Eleanor Crosses

 

ELEANOR CROSSES were a series of twelve extravagantly decorated stone monuments topped with crosses and erected in a line down part of the east of England. They were built at the instigation of Edward I between 1291 and about 1295 in memory of his beloved late wife Eleanor of Castile. The King and Queen had been married for 36 years and she stayed by the King’s side through his many travels including on a Crusade when he was wounded at Acre. She had died in Harby, a village near Lincoln in 1290. The crosses, erected in her memory, marked the nightly resting-places along the route taken when her body was transported to Westminster Abbey in London.   The crosses stood at Lincoln, Grantham and Stamford, all in Lincolnshire; Geddington and Hardingstone in Northamptonshire; Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire; Woburn and Dunstable in Bedfordshire; St Albans and Waltham (now known as Waltham Cross) in Hertfordshire; Cheapside in London; and Charing (now Charing Cross) in Westminster.    Three of those medieval monuments – those at Geddington, Hardingstone and Waltham Cross – survive more or less intact; but the other nine, other than a few fragments, are lost. The largest and most ornate of the twelve was the Charing Cross. Several memorials and elaborated reproductions of the crosses have been erected including, the Queen Eleanor Memorial Cross at Charing Cross Station built in 1865.

I'm listening to Nina Simone's stunning, soulful version of He Ain't Coming No More.

Listen to it HERE