Kees van Dongen

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Kees van Dongen (1923)
Willem Verbon: Kees van Dongen , portrait in Rotterdam-Delfshaven. Object made of bronze, natural stone and brick, unveiled in 1990

Kees van Dongen (born January 26, 1877 in Delfshaven near Rotterdam ; † May 28, 1968 in Monte Carlo ; actually Cornelis Theodorus Marie van Dongen ) was a French painter of Dutch origin who lived and worked mainly in France . He is one of the Fauvists .

Life

Kees van Dongen, son of a brewer, studied from 1892 to 1894 at the "Academy of Fine Arts and Technical Sciences" in Rotterdam, where he met his future wife Augusta Preitinger, known as Guus. In 1897 he went to Paris for the first time - to follow her - for a stay of several months . In December 1899 he settled permanently in Paris, where he worked for various satirical magazines such as "L'Assiette au beurre", married Augusta in 1901 and in the same year moved into a gypsy wagon parked in the Impasse Girardon in the maquis of Montmartre. In 1904 the art dealer Ambroise Vollard gave him the opportunity to have a solo exhibition in his gallery on Rue Lafitte. A year later, van Dongen took part in the Salon d'Automne , but did not exhibit in Hall VII, which became famous as the “cage aux fauves” (predatory animal cage ) and which gave Fauvism its name. After meeting Pablo Picasso and the birth of their daughter Dolly (* 1905), the family moved in 1906 to the neighboring studio barrack Bateau-Lavoir , which was inhabited by Picasso and his partner Fernande Olivier, and where the friends of the Andalusian painter met , to which at that time Max Jacob , Guillaume Apollinaire and André Salmon belonged, later also Juan Gris and Georges Braque . Van Dongen joined the "Fauves" in 1905 and received André Derain , Maurice de Vlaminck , Charles Camoin and Henri Matisse in his living room in the Bateau-Lavoir, which also served as a studio .

From 1908 to 1912 he made several trips that took him to Germany, Spain, Morocco and Egypt. In 1909 he became a member of the artist group "Brücke" in Dresden . Max Pechstein met van Dongen around the turn of the year 1907/1908 in Paris and encouraged him to take part in a “Fauves” presentation within a “Brücke” exhibition in Dresden in 1908, although his works did not correspond to the “Brücke” style and a spiritual exchange was not an option. Presumably the members hoped for an expansion of their European perspectives and business connections to well-known gallery owners with whom van Dongen was in contact. However, there was neither the planned participation of the “Brücke” artists in the 25th exhibition of the “ Société des Artistes Indépendants ” nor any other joint activities. From 1912 he taught at the Académie Vitti for about a year. In 1921 he separated from his wife.

The Fauvist achieved success through commissioned work on numerous women portraits in the golden 20s and joined the glamorous circles that frequented Montparnasse . In 1929 he became a French citizen.

When France was occupied by the National Socialists during World War II , he accepted, along with André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck, an invitation from the German sculptor Arno Breker to visit Germany, which earned him the charge of collaboration . After his divorce from Guus, he met Marie-Claire Huguen in 1938, whom he married in 1953; In 1940 their son Jean-Marie was born. Mother and child moved to Monaco in 1949 , to a house that van Dongen called Villa Bateau-Lavour , where he spent the winter months. In 1957 van Dongen also moved permanently to Monaco, but kept his studio in Paris. In 1959 he took part in the exhibition “Le fauvisme français et les débuts de l'impressionisme”.

Kees van Dongen died in Monte Carlo in 1968 at the age of 91.

Works

Awards

plant

Van Dongen's preferred motif were women. Singers, including the Mistinguett , and dancers were models for him during the first ten years of his stay in Paris, before he became a sought-after portraitist for celebrities . His work is characterized by the lack of perspective , the simplification of forms, the bold brushwork and lively colors.

literature

  • Louis Chaumeil: Van Dongen: L'homme et l'artiste, la vie et l'oeuvre. Pierre Cailler, Geneva 1967
  • Gaston Diehl: Van Dongen. Flammarion, Paris
  • Gerd Presler : Kees (Cornelius, Theodorus, Marie) van Dongen (1877–1968) in: Die Brücke , rororo monographie 642, Reinbek 2007, p. 30 f. ISBN 978-3-499-50642-0

Web links

Commons : Kees van Dongen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kees van Dongen. moma.org, accessed October 28, 2010.
  2. ↑ Talitha Schoon, Jan van Adrichem, Hanneke de Man: Kees van Dongen. Museum Boymans-van-Beuningen, Rotterdam 1989, p. 164 ff.
  3. ↑ Kees van Dongen Major Retrospective ( Memento from September 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on February 18, 2016.
  4. ↑ The Art of Diplomacy. In: welt.de. Retrieved March 8, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Portrait de Renée Maha, dite Le Sphinx | Paris museums. Retrieved March 8, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Dongen, Kees van
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dongen, Cornelis Theodorus Maria van (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 26, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Delfshaven (near Rotterdam )
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1968
Place of death Monte Carlo