Details

Object type

painting

Title

The Jetties of Trouville-Deauville

Artist/Maker

Raoul Dufy artist

Culture/School

French

Place Associated

Deauville (place depicted)

Date

1929

Materials

oil on canvas

Dimensions

unframed: 462 x 548 mm; framed: 660 x 740 mm

Description

Figures promenade up and down two jetties. Birds fly overhead, the sea is a turquoise green and the sky is blue. Many of the figures wear colourful clothing, including a woman in bright red attire to the left, a man in the centre wearing a blue coat with green buttons, and nearby an elegant brunette wearing a yellow and green, long flowing dress.

Raoul Dufy's paintings of racecourses, concerts and holidays by the sea brilliantly capture the glamour of the Jazz Age.

With just a few jaunty lines and some strong splashes of colour he suggests the exhilaration of these elegant visitors as they take a bracing walk on this sunny but chilly and windy day. While the sketch-like quality of this painting might suggest Dufy made it in just a few minutes, nothing could be further from the truth. He would go out and sketch a scene and then, in the quiet of his studio, use his drawings to work on the painting. His real challenge was to keep the immediacy, spontaneity and movement of his sketches in the finished piece.

Credit Line/Donor

Gifted, 1960

ID Number

3120

Location

Kelvingrove French Art Gallery