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Lot Essay
In 1910 Raoul Dufy and the designer Paul Poiret formed a partnership and founded a highly successful atelier devoted to the creation of printed and dyed textiles. While working with Poiret, Dufy perfected a technique that allowed him to print designs on fabrics that could then be worn as clothing, and around this time Dufy also became a regular designer for the Bianchini-Ferier silk factory in Lyon. It was in part due to these partnerships that the theme of horse racing occupied a central role within Dufy's oeuvre.
During the mid-1920s, Poiret often required Dufy to accompany him to the races and to observe and paint fashionable society ladies wearing his silks. Dufy's interest in documenting fashion did not last as his focus rapidly turned to the action of the horses, the spectators and their surrounds. "In his sketchbooks he jotted down the silhouettes of the figures in the spectator area and the various attitudes of the horses captured mid-race. These studies reveal his attention to evocative details: his paintings and watercolors admirably convey the special atmosphere of race-courses and the gaily coloured crowd of spectators." (D. Perez-Tibi, Dufy, New York, p. 158).
His race-course scenes are of particular importance for it was through them that Dufy began to implement his couleur-lumière theory which was to become his trademark style. As William H. Wilson observes "...Dufy developed a life-long system of color blocks and swatches of unmodelled tones that move across the canvas, not necessarily in places where they logically belong...This was deliberately done in order to force the viewer's eye and mind to connect the object with its proper color, thus activating the scene with movement." (quoted in intro., Raoul Dufy, exh. cat., McNay Art Institute, 1980, n.p.).
During the mid-1920s, Poiret often required Dufy to accompany him to the races and to observe and paint fashionable society ladies wearing his silks. Dufy's interest in documenting fashion did not last as his focus rapidly turned to the action of the horses, the spectators and their surrounds. "In his sketchbooks he jotted down the silhouettes of the figures in the spectator area and the various attitudes of the horses captured mid-race. These studies reveal his attention to evocative details: his paintings and watercolors admirably convey the special atmosphere of race-courses and the gaily coloured crowd of spectators." (D. Perez-Tibi, Dufy, New York, p. 158).
His race-course scenes are of particular importance for it was through them that Dufy began to implement his couleur-lumière theory which was to become his trademark style. As William H. Wilson observes "...Dufy developed a life-long system of color blocks and swatches of unmodelled tones that move across the canvas, not necessarily in places where they logically belong...This was deliberately done in order to force the viewer's eye and mind to connect the object with its proper color, thus activating the scene with movement." (quoted in intro., Raoul Dufy, exh. cat., McNay Art Institute, 1980, n.p.).