.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Fanny Guillon-Laffaille will include this work in her forthcoming supplement to the Raoul Dufy catalogue raisonné des aquarelles, gouaches, et pastels.
Dufy's fascination with horse racing was initially inspired by his collaboration with the fashion designer Paul Poiret, who in 1909 commissioned the artist to create the stationary for his fashion house, and the textile patterns used in its fabrics and garments. Poiret's signature dresses were flamboyantly sported by the ladies attending the races in Paris, Nice, Deauville, and, of course, the even more fashionable English race courses at Epsom and Ascot. Poiret urged Dufy to study the silhouettes, fashionable dress, and interactions of the sociable crowd of spectators as well as the horses captured in mid-race and the activity in the paddocks.
Dufy was immediately drawn to the exhilarating atmosphere surrounding the race itself and began to experiment with the subject of horse races as early as 1913. His first depiction of the paddocks were very stylized watercolors, focusing on the audience of élégantes, dandies and jockeys attending the races at Deauville. In the 1920s, his attention to the public's attire grew stronger, and he dedicated a series of gouaches to Poiret's models (Les mannequins de Poiret), whom he captured in still, frieze-like compositions, influenced by 1920s fashion advertising. With his discovery of Epsom and Ascot in the 1930s, Dufy's compositions became more ambitious--he started depicting the whole course, as seen from a bird's eye-view.
In Epsom, painted in 1937, Dufy has captured the moment at the beginning of the race, when the elegant spectators stroll leisurely in the foreground waiting for the competition to begin. The stillness of the race course with its cool greens creates a stark contrast against the colorful crowds. Dufy employed couleur-lumière to these works, a technique that emphasized color over the shading properties of black and white, and allowed the artist to convey light in a distinct way. As Dora Perez-Tibi describes, "these racecourse scenes--whether in France, at Deauville, Lonchamp or Chantilly or, in England, at Epson, Ascot or Goodwood--allowed Dufy to put his couleur-lumière theory into practice...he decided to convey light by means of colour; the absence of colour represents the unlit area...For Dufy, the balance of the composition comes from the distribution of all the points of the composition " (in Dufy, New York, 1989, pp. 158-162). Epsom reveals Dufy's extraordinary ability to convey the vivacious atmosphere that pervades the spectacle and social event of horse racing.
Dufy's fascination with horse racing was initially inspired by his collaboration with the fashion designer Paul Poiret, who in 1909 commissioned the artist to create the stationary for his fashion house, and the textile patterns used in its fabrics and garments. Poiret's signature dresses were flamboyantly sported by the ladies attending the races in Paris, Nice, Deauville, and, of course, the even more fashionable English race courses at Epsom and Ascot. Poiret urged Dufy to study the silhouettes, fashionable dress, and interactions of the sociable crowd of spectators as well as the horses captured in mid-race and the activity in the paddocks.
Dufy was immediately drawn to the exhilarating atmosphere surrounding the race itself and began to experiment with the subject of horse races as early as 1913. His first depiction of the paddocks were very stylized watercolors, focusing on the audience of élégantes, dandies and jockeys attending the races at Deauville. In the 1920s, his attention to the public's attire grew stronger, and he dedicated a series of gouaches to Poiret's models (Les mannequins de Poiret), whom he captured in still, frieze-like compositions, influenced by 1920s fashion advertising. With his discovery of Epsom and Ascot in the 1930s, Dufy's compositions became more ambitious--he started depicting the whole course, as seen from a bird's eye-view.
In Epsom, painted in 1937, Dufy has captured the moment at the beginning of the race, when the elegant spectators stroll leisurely in the foreground waiting for the competition to begin. The stillness of the race course with its cool greens creates a stark contrast against the colorful crowds. Dufy employed couleur-lumière to these works, a technique that emphasized color over the shading properties of black and white, and allowed the artist to convey light in a distinct way. As Dora Perez-Tibi describes, "these racecourse scenes--whether in France, at Deauville, Lonchamp or Chantilly or, in England, at Epson, Ascot or Goodwood--allowed Dufy to put his couleur-lumière theory into practice...he decided to convey light by means of colour; the absence of colour represents the unlit area...For Dufy, the balance of the composition comes from the distribution of all the points of the composition " (in Dufy, New York, 1989, pp. 158-162). Epsom reveals Dufy's extraordinary ability to convey the vivacious atmosphere that pervades the spectacle and social event of horse racing.