Raoul Dufy

Galerie du Carlton, Cannes
Acquired from the above by the present owner in September 1996

Maurice Laffaille, Raoul Dufy, Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, vol. III, Geneva, 1976, no. 1147, illustrated p. 182

The canvas is lined. UV examination reveals small areas of retouching in places, the most prominent of which is an approx. 7cm. line to the rug towards the centre of the lower edge, and some away from the central composition. There are scattered fine lines of stable craquelure and a few tiny flecks of paint loss. This work is in overall fairly good condition.
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Nu dans l’atelier Impasse de Guelma is an honest and tenderly executed study of a nude, encompassing Raoul Dufy’s uniquely modern approach to a traditional subject matter.  The artist’s trademark use of strong colours brings the painting to vibrant life, reflecting a classical nude scene in a dynamic and highly distinctive manner. Dufy’s favoured blue dominates the background of the composition in several different textures and tones, effectively pushing the subject to the foreground. Within the present work, Dufy uses bold, rapidly applied brushstrokes to define the subject’s figure in a sympathetic yet celebratory manner, so that the viewer’s eye is irresistibly drawn to the model not as a passive figure, but as a delicately complicit character, both conscious and confident in her situation. Dufy paints the subject ‘full of an awareness of human dignity, vulnerability, and innocent grace’ (Bryan Robertson, ‘An introduction to Dufy’ in Raoul Dufy (exhibition catalogue), London, 1983-84, p. 30). As Dora Perez-Tibi states, in Dufy’s work ‘the model is created by colour; the light of the painting emanates from the model’s flesh… Their far from idealized physiques and the shadow of melancholy that seem to surround them touch us as they touched Dufy, who looked on these women with eyes full of tenderness’ (Dora Perez-Tibi, Dufy, Paris, 1989, p. 242).

Nu dans l’atelier Impasse de Guelma also plays on the identity of the painter as a percipient actor within the composition, an area Dufy explored in many of his depictions of nudes. The brushes on the table bring an awareness of the artist’s conscious presence within the work. Equally, the self-portrait and the works painted on the wall in Dufy’s unmistakeable style are a further ode to the role of the artist as an active participant in the composition. This creates a special connection between model and artist as their personalities interact within the confines of the canvas, placing a thoroughly modern twist on a classical subject matter. In Nu dans l’atelier Impasse de Guelma Dufy forges an emotional connection between artist, model and viewer through this delicate, graceful and personal composition.