RAOUL DUFY | Courses à Ascot

Private Collection, Europe (acquired from the artist before 1931)
Private Collection, New York (by descent from the above and sold: Sotheby's, New York, November 8, 2007, lot 419)
Acquired at the above sale

Bucharest, Fondation Dalles, La Peinture française moderne, 1935, no. 24

Executed on cream wove paper. The work is hinged to a mount in the lower left and lower right corners of its verso. The sheet is undulating throughout. The sheet is unevenly time stained, including the edges where the matte or frame came into contact with the sheet. There are lines of indentation marking where a previous matte or frame made contact with the sheet. The left and right edges are deckled. There are remnants of adhesive running along all four edges of the sheet's verso. There is a dent to the sheet along the lower edge, about four inches to the left of the lower right corner. There is a half-inch spot of indentation with an associated pinhole in the blue building toward the center right edge. Light surface scratches in the green pigments of the lower right quadrant. There are two pindot spots of losses to a figure's neck area in the center of the composition. The work is in good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Dufy is famous for revisiting themes, but as Raymond Cogniat argues convincingly, these “pictures are not different versions of the same subject but another harmony, another combination of rhythms, of which the subject is only the starting point” (Raymond Cogniat, Paintings and Drawings by Raoul Dufy (exhibition catalogue), Tate Britain, London, 1954, n.p.). Dufy’s approach could not be more different to that of Monet, who diligently recorded the atmospheric effects on a single subject, willingly submitting to “ideas dictated by circumstances of light or temperature, things outside himself, whereas Dufy imposes on a picture his individual and personal vision” (Raymond Cogniat, ibid., n.p.). The present work is a case in point: torrential rain on June 18, 1930 flooded the course and caused the program to be abandoned for the rest of the day, with photographs recording the sea of umbrellas and press reports of lightning strikes. The clouds in the present work allude perhaps to inclement weather but it is the pace of the racehorses that drives the momentum of the characteristically bright composition.

If the Impressionists’ fastidious attention to natural light did not interest him, the obsession with society and fashion at Ascot interested him even less. “Friends who accompanied Dufy on his earliest expeditions to the racecourse in the twenties...all speak of the way in which he was more interested in the horses' and jockeys' colours than he was in the people, smart or otherwise. Gradually, in Dufy's racecourse scenes...everything is again given up to the crisp, jaunty interaction between green turf, red brick buildings, white railings, multi-coloured crowds, green trees against blue sky with sprightly puffs of clouds" (Bryan Robertson, "An Introduction to Raoul Dufy," in Raoul Dufy 1877-1953 (exhibition catalogue), Hayward Gallery, London, 1983, n.p.).

Fanny Guillon-Laffaille has kindly confirmed the authenticity of this work which will be included in her forthcoming supplement to the catalogue raisonné of Watercolors, Gouaches and Pastels currently in preparation.