In 1897 he lived in Paris for several months. In December 1899 he returned to Paris to join Augusta Preitinger ("Guus"), whom he had met at the Academy. They married on July 11, 1901 (they divorced in 1921). He began to exhibit in Paris, including the controversial 1905 exhibition Salon d'Automne,[1] in a room featuring Henri Matisse amongst others. The bright colours of this group of artists led to them being called Fauves ('Wild Beasts'). (He was also briefly a member of the German Expressionist group Die Brücke.) In these years he was part of an avant-garde wave of painters - Maurice de Vlaminck, Othon Friesz, Henri Rousseau, Robert Delaunay, Albert Marquet, Edouard Vuillard, - that incarnated hopes of a renewal in painting stuck in Neo-impressionism. In 1906 the couple moved to the Bateau Lavoir at 13 rue Ravignan, where they were friends with the circle surrounding Pablo Picasso and his girlfriend Fernande Olivier.
The painting above was on exhibit when we visited the Picasso Museum
The painting above was also on exhibit when we visited the Picasso Museum 
These all reward longer looks. Some look deceptively simple, but there is more going on in them than you first notice. I'm more conscious than I usually am that we are probably missing a lot not seeing these in the original. I bet the paint itself is wonderful to look at, especially in the the last, the painting with the many women, the second to last (one of my favorites of this group), and the one with the red in the hair.
ReplyDeleteHow large are these? At least the two you saw on exhibit...
How luscious and lovely. As I scrolled down, I said, "This is my favorite, no this is my favorite, no..." Thank you for this visual, sensual pleasure. There is nothing like mixing flesh tones and layering color as sheer as..."
ReplyDeletei liked the last the best.
ReplyDeleteI am smitten
ReplyDeletewonderful textured women
My favourite is the lady with the ribbon stuck to her stomach! I wonder what she used? Maybe chewing-gum!
ReplyDeletelovely all...I did the same, scrolled down, going "this one, no, this one..."I think the group of women is probably the most compelling especially if seen in reality, which I probably never will.
ReplyDeleteit's good to see you again, gina! well, not here in your post, lol...after I wrote that, I wondered if it didn't sound a tad weird? :)
Steve: the canvas of the group of pink-hued women was large. I'm not very good with remembering dimensions but I recall it took up half a hall of the room in the museum. Maybe two yards in length? The other was a standard sized canvas, if there is such a thing. I tried to look up exact dimensions but I had no success.
ReplyDeleteUtah: luscious and lovely is what I think, too. I love the pattern on the shawl on one of the nudes. I love his nudes. One of his models was Picasso's girlfriend, Fernande, though I'm not sure if she's depicted here or in any of the other Van Dongen nude images I've collected. Ifonly they were real and not just pixels!
Rinkly: :-D Ha! How did she do that? Hot wax? ;-)
Linda: no, that's not weird. I feel that way about people I "run into" here. :-) hugs to you