1908
Oil on canvas
Private collection.
Le clocher is the only non-Italian painting that comes from the same private collection as lots XX, demonstrating the special admiration that the later owner had for Raoul Dufy.
Raoul Dufy was, together with Emile Othon Friesz and Georges Braque, one of the protagonists of the Fauvist school of Le Havre, where he was born in 1877, and he completed his studies, at the Ecole de Beaux-Arts. In 1899, he was released from military service and moved to Paris with Friesz, where he became acquainted with the work of the Impressionist artists. The turning point of his career however came in 1905, when he visited the Salon d’ Automne. The vivid colours and violent brushstrokes of the early Fauve painters such as Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck, were irresistible to him and his fellow Norman painters, who inevitably responded to this in their own work, back in their native Normandy.
Le Havre remained one of Dufy’s favourite subjects, and one that he would paint both from life, while visiting his native town, and in his studio, allowing his imagination to recreate it, a tendency in common with the Fauves he had admired in Paris.
Le clocher depicts the bell tower of the Church of St Vincent in Le Havre, surrounded by a harmonious yet dynamic view of the rooftops of Dufy’s hometown. The tones are slightly darker than those typical of his 1906 images of Le Havre, almost as if the day here was turning to sunset, but the deep, blue brushstrokes give a sense of movement, balanced with serenity, that pervades the canvas. A very similar stylistic approach and palette can be seen in some major paintings executed the same year in the South of France and today in museums, such as the Vence landscape in the collection of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, or Boats at l’Estaque in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nice.
Le clocher has not been seen at auction since 1965, when it last sold publicly as part of a large, important collection sale.
Why settle for a paper print when you can add sophistication to your rooms with a high quality 100% hand-painted oil painting on canvas at wholesale price? Order this beautiful oil painting today! that's a great way to impress friends, neighbors and clients alike.