Circa 1905 French Fauvist Colourist Landscape by André DERAIN (1880-1954)

Derain initially studied for the entrance exam for the cole Centrale d'ingnieurs (college of engineering). He finally decided to devote himself completely to painting and his first guidance came from Jacomin, a local painter who had known Czanne. He attended the Acadmie Carrire from 1896 to 1898, where he met Matisse. In 1901, one or two years before he left for military service, he formed a close friendship with Vlaminck. Soon the two began to work together in a wooden cabin near the bridge in Chatou, which they shared as a studio. They also socialised with the boaters on the banks of the Seine in the open-air cafs and at the Fournaise restaurant where frequently by the Impressionists and Guy de Maupassant used to go. Around this time their work was becoming known as the School of Chatou. After military service Derain, who had illustrated two books by Vlaminck, did not renew his association with the School of Chatou, nor with Vlaminck. Instead, he enrolled at the Acadmie Julian, which shocked Vlaminck who believed that painters should rely on instinct alone in their work. Derain began to copy works in the Louvre, such as Carrying the Cross by Ghirlandaio and left Chatou and for Montmartre where his studio was in Rue Tourlaque. He spent the summer of 1905 in Collioure with Matisse. The Salon d'Automne of tha same year marked the birth of Fauvism. Ambroise Vollard, who supported Derain, advised him to spend time in London, which he did in 1905 and 1906, bringing back some of the most significant paintings from his Fauvist period. Derain also became acquainted with Georges Braque and went with him to l'Estaque in 1906, and with Picasso with whom he travelled to Cadaqus in 1910. When World War I broke out Derain was with Braque and Picasso in Montfavet. He served as an artilleryman in Champagne and the Somme. At the end of hostilities he went to Paris, and then to Rome in 1921 and spent many summers in the Provence region in the south of France between 1921 and 1933. He settled eventually in Chambourcy in 1935 and died there in 1954.

Derain's early works were in the style of the School of Chatou. Derain and Vlaminck, the only two exponents of it, painted with broad splashes of pure colour without shadows or backgrounds, after they became acquainted with Van Gogh's work in 1901, and used the punctuated, isolated strokes of the Neo-Impressionists. They were the precursors of Fauvism and were soon joined by Matisse, Friesz, Braque, Van Dongen, Rouault, Camoin and a few more. Fauvism got its name when the critic Louis Vauxcelles gave the group of artists exhibiting together at the Salon d'Automne in 1905, the derisory description of 'fauves' (wild beasts). In his Fauvist period Derain was both radical and refined and that remained a characteristic of all his work. Derain's works show however that, in contrast with fauvist principles, they were carefully composed and not painted by instinct. When he used pure colours straight from the tube for instance, he diluted them considerably so that the white of the canvas showed through, thus tempering their strength.

In the years immediately following Fauvism, Derain became interested in the meeting of artistic practice and the intellectual world as well in African art, to which he introduced Picasso. This development and his return from Czanne's constructive rules to classicism led him to the fringes of Cubism. After the determination and daring of his Fauve period, Derain turned to the classical tradition, while aiming to giving it a new life; he switched from Fauvism's brilliant colours to muted shades. Influences from Czanne (1908), Poussin (c. 1912), Primitive Italians (1913), Fayoum portraits (1914), Quattrocento and even the artists of Pompeii (after 1920-Gothic period) can be detected in his work. Reference to African, early medieval and classical art is apparent in his sculptures from 1939 while his paintings in the same period were inspired by Caravaggio, the Bologna School and Raphael. He painted figures, nudes, landscapes, and, after 1920, structured and composed still-lifes.

In 1907 Vlaminck and Derain were the first artists to be contracted by the Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler gallery. While he rarely exhibited his work, he featured in the Matres de l'Art Contemporain held at the Petit Palais in Paris in 1937 for the Exposition Universelle. Thirty of his paintings were displayed showing the diversity of his themes, including: Portrait of Vlaminck; Table with Cloth; Femme nue jusqu'aux paules; Drinkers; Bathing; London Street; Grapes; Self-portrait with Pipe; Landscape in the South of France; Woman with Fruit; Rear View of Nude; Mount Olympus; Kitchen Table.

Derain is regularly represented in collectively themed exhibitions, including: The Fauve Landscape: Matisse, Derain, Braque, and their circle, 1904-1908, Los Angeles County Museum (1991); Fauvism or 'Trial by Fire': The Eruption of Modernity in Europe ( Le Fauvisme ou 'L'preuve du Feu': ruption de la Modernit en Europe) Muse d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (1999); Fauvism in Black and White. From Gauguin to Vlaminck, Fauvist Engraving and its Setting ( Le Fauvisme en Noir et Blanc. De Gauguin Vlaminck, l'Estampe des Fauves et son Environnement), Muse d'Art moderne, Villeneuve-d'Ascq (2001); Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Centre Julio Gonzlez, Valencia (2003); Danseuses et baigneuses chez Derain, Rouault et Vlaminck. 1905-1910 Muse d'Art moderne Lille Mtropole, Villeneuve-d'Ascq (2003); The Origins of Abstraction (1800-1914) ( Aux Origines de l'Abstraction (1800-1914)) Muse d'Orsay, Paris (2003).

Derain held very few solo exhibitions. Guillaume Apollinaire wrote a preface for his first one in 1916 at the Galerie Paul Guillaume, which supported him throughout his life. Only three more were ever held in Paris, in 1931, 1937 and 1949. Posthumous retrospectives include: Muse d'Art Moderne, Paris (1954); Derain peintre-graveur, 1880-1954 Bibliothque Nationale, Paris (1955); Derain, connu et inconnu Muse Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi (1974); Grand Palais, Paris (1977); Hommage Andr Derain 1880-1954, Muse d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (1980); Muse de Melun (1984); Un certain Derain, Muse de l'Orangerie, Paris (1991); Andr Derain, le peintre du trouble moderne, Muse d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (1994); Andr Derain et le retour la tradition, Muse d'Art moderne, Troyes (1991); Muse Despiau-Wlrick, Mont-de-Marsan (1995); Derain and Vlaminck: 1900-1915, Muse de Lodve (2001); Andr Derain, sculptures et ?uvres sur papier with c. thirty bronzes and half of the models for them in terracotta, Galerie de la Prsidence, Paris (2002); Andr Derain, Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne (2003); Andr Derain, paysages du Midi, Muse de l'Annonciade, St-Tropez (2003).

In 1919 Derain designed the stage sets and costumes for La Boutique Fantasque based on themes by Rossini for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. In the early 1950s he designed stage sets for Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio and Rossini's Barber of Seville at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. He also illustrated many literary works, usually with woodcuts, lithographs or burin engravings, including: Andr Salmon's Archives from the Onze Club ( Archives du club des Onze) (1902); Vlaminck's From one bed to another ( D'un lit dans l'autre) (1902); Vlaminck's All for this ( Tout pour a) (1903); Guillaume Apollinaire's L'Enchanteur pourrissant (1909); Max Jacob's The Burlesque and Mystic Works of Frre Matorel ( Les ?uvres Burlesques et Mystiques du Frre Matorel) (1912); Andr Breton's Mont de Pit (1916); Pierre Reverdy's Painted Stars ( toiles peintes) (1921); Antonin Artaud's Heliogabalus (1934); Petronius Satyricon (1934); Ovid's Heroides (1938); Rabelais' Pantagruel (1946); La Fontaine's Contes et Nouvelles (1950); Antoine de St-Exupry's Works (1950); Anacreon's Odes (1953). He was also a sculptor carving from shell cases in the aftermath of World War I. He resumed his sculptural work with vigour after 1939. He was awarded the Carnegie Prize, Pittsburgh (1928).