Woman in a Chemise
André Derain (French, 1880–1954)
1906
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- height 100 cm, width 81 cm, height 117.6 cm, width 98.6 cm
- Culture
- French
- Museum
- SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark: SMK waives its rights in this photograph, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
About this work
WOMAN IN A CHEMISE is a confident example of the power of expression that can be achieved through shape and colour. The picture plane is stretched out from top to bottom by a seated, fiery-haired woman, her gaze directed at us. Despite a seemingly rapid and expressive mode of painting, the image is constructed out of a stringent system of triangles, with colours restricted to the complementary contrasts red/green and orange¬/blue. The painting is a key work from Derain’s Fauvist period. Together with Matisse, Derain spent the summer of 1905 in the town of Collioure in the south of France, where they experimented on setting colour free from its purely descriptive function. The results of their sojourn were shown at the 1905 Salon d’Automne. Derain briefly continued in the Fauvist style, but changed his idiom as early as 1908.
