Raoul Dufy: A Celebration of Beauty

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Manufacturer: Mississippi Museum of Art

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French artist Raoul Dufy (1877–1953) saw the world in hues that others can scarcely imagine. Having studied as an artist during the time of impressionism, he used his attention to light and spontaneity along with fauvism’s flat, bold palette to develop a unique personal style filled with wit, lyrical line, and sumptuous color. The artist worked across mediums, and among his creations are numerous paintings and drawings, illustrations for about fifty literary works, about fifty tapestries, more than 200 ceramic pieces, and nearly 5,000 fabric designs. Themes developed and recurred throughout his work, and ranged from boating and horse racing to flowers and music. In recent years, Raoul Dufy has been increasingly recognized for his work as a painter, but he was also one of the great innovators of twentieth-century textile design, though this aspect of his work has remained relatively unknown. While working with couturier Paul Poiret, and between 1912 and 1928 with Bianchini-Férier (the leading French silk manufacturer), Dufy created a wealth of original Art Deco designs in silks, dress fabrics, and wall hangings. Dufy's fabrics were stunning, and Poiret used them extensively in his fashions, creating magnificent coats, capes, and dresses in spectacular silk brocades block-printed with large designs. Dufy transformed the face of fashion and fabric design, formulated practically all modern fabric design between 1909 and 1930, and his style radically influenced the popular arts and the commercial design of the Western world. Even today, his vision informs the color, design, texture, and imagery of a wide range of products such as book covers, perfumes, posters and stage decor, and textiles for furniture and clothing. Raoul Dufy: A Celebration of Beauty celebrates Dufy’s joie de vivre and his appreciation of beauty through the presentation of more than 200 works of art. The exhibition includes about 100 paintings, watercolors, drawings and woodcuts from European private collections—the great majority never exhibited before in North America—and nearly 100 original silk fabrics and fabric designs presented from the archives of Bianchini-Férier in Lyon, France, offering an unprecedented view of the oeuvre of Dufy. Also featured in the exhibition are more than ten dresses that include designs by Mongi Guibane and Christian Lacroix, using Dufy fabric designs. Raoul Dufy: A Celebration of Beauty is published in conjunction with the exhibition Raoul Dufy: A Celebration of Beauty, appearing at the Mississippi Museum of Art February 7–July 5, 2009 as part of The Annie Laurie Swaim Hearin Memorial Exhibition Series. The catalogue includes essays by Shirley Reiff Howarth and Guy Blazy, as well as full-color reproductions of the more 200 works of art on display in the galleries. Published by Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, in association with The Humanities Exchange, Inc., Montreal, Canada.