The spectacular Les Voiles rouges exemplifies the pinnacle of Derain’s Fauve style.  Painted in 1906 in London during the height of the Fauve movement, the present work was completed during one of Derain’s three visits to London over the span of ten months between the spring of 1906 and early 1907. Derain was a mere twenty-five at the time, and was encouraged to make the journey from Paris to London by his dealer, Ambroise Vollard.  Intended to rival Monet’s views of London painted in 1900-03, Derain recalled the commission from Vollard in a letter to Ronald Alley and wrote: “After a visit to London, he was very enthusiastic about the city and wanted some paintings inspired by its atmosphere.  He sent me there because he wanted to renew the expression that Claude Monet had tackled so successfully, and which had made such a powerful impression in Paris a few years earlier” (quoted in André Derain, The London Paintings (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., p. 31).

Roughly thirty canvases were painted during Derain’s stay in London. Most of these compositions depicted recognizable sites such as the Palace of Westminster, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Charing Cross and the Tower Bridges; and some were in direct correspondence with Monet’s chosen views.  The present work however, is void of any of the readily discernible landmarks and instead features a wide section of the river and lacks any architectural skyline.  Several scholars suggested that the present work was painted in Greenwich, a town located at the lowest crossing point on the Thames, downriver from London city. The boat painted by Derain resembles a Thames sailing barge, or commercial sailing boat commonly found on the River Thames in London. These flat bottom boats were powered by spritsails which were uniquely colored a reddish-brown. Derain painted only one other known composition at this location, Effets de soleil sur l'eau which resides in the Musée de l’Annonciade, Saint-Tropez.

John House discussed the uniqueness of Derain’s personal interpretation of his London series stating: “There is an immediate paradox about André Derain’s views of London.  His chosen subjects belong firmly within the topographical tradition, depicting sites that had become, by the early twentieth century, part of the stock imagery of London. By contrast, the style and execution of the paintings is aggressively experimental – the colour extravagant and at times radically anti-naturalistic, the brushstroke a freely improvised medley of the latest Parisian avant-garde styles.” (J. House, The Thames Transfigured: André Derain’s London in André Derain, The London Paintings (exhibition catalogue) op. cit., p. 31). The present work is boldly experimental and holds an important place in André Derain’s early career as an emblem of his Fauvist aesthetic of 1906.  This dynamic seascape, executed with brilliantly saturated swaths of color and line, embodies an energy and vigor that defined the spirit of Derain and his colleagues Matisse, Vlaminck and Braque from 1905-1907.

Describing the unique pictorial effect created in Derain’s work of this period, Jacqueline Munck remarked: “Line and stroke seemed to have travelled back in time to rediscover their origins and invent mark, outline and pulsation, the rhythm of life, the natural extension of the eye that draws, a plunge into instinct, impatient graphs, fluid or solid, irrigating the obverse and reverse of the perceptible and the luminous” (J. Munck in André Derain (exhibition catalogue), Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Valencià, 2003, p. 66). Derain’s unbridled palette and poetic rendering of a large boat with red sails in the present work played a pivotal role in the development of modern painting.

Formerly in the collection of The Toledo Museum of Art, the present work was purchased by Sarah Campbell Blaffer in November 1951. Blaffer was the daughter of William Thomas Campbell, the founder of the Texas Company (later known as Texaco), and Sarah Campbell (née Turnbull). Sarah’s lifelong love for supporting the arts began during a visit to the Louvre during her honeymoon with her husband Robert E. Lee Blaffer (the founder of the Humble Oil  & Refining Co., now Exxon Mobil). Together, the Blaffers amassed a comprehensive collection of works ranging from Old Master paintings to Impressionist and Modern works. Mrs. Blaffer was an early benefactor of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston where she later donated a large portion of her collection. Following her death, the present work was inherited by her daughter Cecil Blaffer Hudson von Fürstenberg (also known as Titi von Fürstenberg). Derain's majestic Les Voiles rouge has remained in this same family collection for over sixty years.