Idbury Prints: An online gallery of original fine art prints

RAOUL DUFY (French / 1877-1953)

Raoul-Ernest-Joseph Dufy was born in Le Havre. At fourteen he started work in the office of a coffee importer. Two years later Raoul Dufy met Othon Friesz at the town's École Municipal des Beaux-Arts. After his military service, Raoul Dufy won a municipal scholarship to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He enrolled with Othon Friesz in the atelier of Léon Bonnat. Strongly influenced by the impressionists, Raoul Dufy and Othon Friesz were among the first Fauves; Dufy’s style in particular was completely transformed by his first viewing of Matisse's “Luxe, calme, et volupté” in 1905. In 1904 and 1906 Dufy travelled with Albert Marquet; in 1908 he spent the summer with Georges Braque at L'Estaque; in 1909 he travelled with Friesz to Munich. From 1911 Raoul Dufy created fabric designs for Paul Poirier and then Bianchini-Ferrier. After WWI – in which Dufy served as a driver – Raoul Dufy devoted his art to the pleasures of life.