Kees van Dongen

Dolly van Dongen, Paris (the artist's daughter)
J.P. Smid, Amsterdam (acquired in 1965)
Galerie Paul Pétridès, Paris (acquired in 1984)
Private Collection, Switzerland
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1986

The canvas is not lined. UV examination reveals a vertical intermittent line of retouching in the green pigment to the sitter's left shoulder, a spot of retouching to the hair and a horizontal line of retouching about 3cm below the the first "N" of "Dongen". The impasto is very rich and there are a few very fine lines of shrinkage and a faintly visible stretcher bar mark to the sitter's right shoulder. Overall this work is good condition.
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Kees van Dongen began his career as an illustrator for magazines with a predominantly racy slant. As his instinctive flair for portraits developed, he naturally inclined towards depictions of prostitutes and dancers, deploying an assertive use of colour to heighten the striking painted eye-lids of his subjects and the intense rouge on their cheeks. At the end of World War I, his talent was discovered by the upper classes. In the 1920s and 30s he was the choice portraitist among Paris’s upper echelons of society. However, he lost none of his adept handling of strong colours and the expressive portraits that he executed throughout his career are today some of the most distinctive and celebrated works within the Expressionist and Modern Art genre.

Two of his favoured subjects were his wife Augusta and his daughter, also named Augusta but known familiarly as both ‘Dolly’ and ‘Gusie’. One portrait of his wife painted in 1913 shows her wearing only stockings, high heels and a beautifully patterned loose shawl. The painting provoked acclaim and censure in equal measure – such that it was exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in the year that it was painted, only to be removed by the police.

The portraits of his daughter Dolly elicited a softer side from the controversial artist who frequently painted her with a more restrained palette in respect for her innocent, childish charm and mature dignity. It was not only her father who was impressed by her – Pablo Picasso, as recounted by his then wife Fernande Olivier in her memoirs In Love with Picasso, recalls how the endearing nature of Dolly charmed the feisty painter: '…Pablo loved little Gusie and played with her without getting bored, she could get him do whatever she wanted. I didn't know at the time that he could take so much pleasure in being with children. We would have liked to have a child, but as this wish was never realised, we had to be content with the little van Dongen…'

The present portrait shows Dolly demurely clasping her hands in an awkward pose which reveals her youth while gazing towards the viewer with big brown eyes, framed by a mane of luscious dark curls, and with her little mouth fixed in a timid smile. In Dolly, there is none of the ‘knowingness’ of so many of van Dongen’s other subjects. The artist has immaculately executed the unaffected and unrefined nature of his little daughter. The present portrait is a tender and soft rendering of a much-loved daughter by a doting father.