From December 15, 2004 to May 22, 2005 the National Gallery of Art brought together its collection of fauve paintings in an exhibition to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the naming of this movement in French art. In the fall of 1905, critic Louis Vauxcelles first coined the epithet fauve, or "wild beast," to characterize what appeared to be an explosion of color in the work of a loosely knit group of young painters exhibiting at the Salon d'automne in Paris.
Between roughly 1904 and 1907, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Georges Braque, Maurice de Vlaminck, and others brought a newly liberated colorism into cityscape and landscape paintings. Working with an intense, unmodulated application of pure color and the bold strokes of a loaded brush, these artists adapted the advances of postimpressionism, creating a presumably more impetuous or "anarchic" manner.
The National Gallery of Art possesses a splendid collection of fauve paintings. Highlights of the exhibition included
Braque's The Port of La Ciotat (1907);
Vlaminck's Tugboat on the Seine, Chatou (1906); and
Derain's Charing Cross Bridge, London (1906).
The crown jewel of the exhibition was Matisse's small but riveting
Open Window, Collioure (1905), a bequest of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney. It is the central icon of the fauve movement and one of Matisse's acknowledged early masterpieces. Open Window, Collioure was among the very first fauve works. It was painted during the summer of 1905, when Matisse, together with André Derain, worked in the small Mediterranean fishing port of Collioure, near the Spanish border.
Also included in the exhibition:
Henri Matisse
French, 1869 - 1954
Still Life
c. 1905, oil on cardboard on wood
17 x 24.8 cm (6 3/4 x 9 3/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection
Raoul Dufy
French, 1877 - 1953
The Beach at Sainte-Adresse
1906, oil on canvas
53.97 x 64.77 cm (21 1/4 x 25 1/2 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney
Raoul Dufy
French, 1877 - 1953
July 14 in Le Havre
1906, oil on canvas
54.6 x 37.8 cm (21 1/2 x 14 7/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
Maurice de Vlaminck
French, 1876 - 1958
Woman with a Hat
1905, oil on canvas
56.5 x 47.6 cm (22 1/4 x 18 3/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Gift (Partial and Promised) of Lili-Charlotte Sarnoff in memory of Robert and Martha von Hirsch
