André Derain was born on June 17, 1880, in Chatou, France. Most well known for his contribution to the avant-garde movements of Fauvism and Cubism, Derain’s oeuvre draws upon a diverse range of sources including the work of Paul Cézanne, non-Western sculpture, decorative and applied arts, Romanesque and Renaissance imagery, and French landscape painting.

Derain’s formal training began with Eugène Carrière at the Académie Camillo (1898–99) where he met Henri Matisse, at whose encouragement the younger artist exhibited eight works at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905. Matisse and Derain spent the summer of 1905 in the French village Collioure, where Derain painted Fishing Boats, Collioure (Bateaux dans le port, Collioure, 1905) and other works in bold contrasting colors illuminated by bright southern light. That same year, Derain’s work was shown at the Salon d’Automne, Paris, where the critic Louis Vauxcelles used the word fauves (wild beasts) to describe a group of artists including Derain, Matisse, and Maurice de Vlaminck, whose style thus became known as Fauvism. During trips to London in 1905 and 1906, Derain produced city scenes composed of radiant color and unbroken light, such as Big Ben, London (Big Ben, Londres, 1906). In figurative works such as Bathers (Baigneuses, 1907), Derain fuses the volumes of Cézanne with the flatness and rhythmic design of non-Western sculpture, whose influence is also apparent in sculptures such as the archaic Crouching Man (Homme accroupi, 1907) and the gracefully totemic Standing Nude (Femme debout, 1907). In 1908 Derain traveled to the south of France with Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy, and Othon Friesz. From 1908 through 1913, Derain’s continued interest in Cézanne resulted in a series of landscapes such as Landscape at Cadaquès (Cadaquès, 1910).

In 1910, however, Derain destroyed much of his unsold work. Yet soon after this artistic crisis, Derain returned to his study of landscape painting, while also making vanitas still lifes in a proto-Cubist style. Late Gothic and early Renaissance themes feature in paintings such the pseudo-religious Saturday (Le Samedi, 1913), while works such as Italian Woman (L’Italienne, 1913) demonstrate an increasingly stark and geometric classicism. After World War I, Derain found increasing commercial success, and in the 1920s he worked on a series of nudes and other figurative works such as Harlequin and Pierrot (Arlequin et Pierrot, ca. 1924). Classical mythology appears in his work from the 1930s on, as in Return of Ulysses (Le retour d’Ulysse, 1938), which combines Last Supper imagery with that of a Homeric banquet. After the end of World War II, Derain made a number of landscapes of Normandy (in 1949), as well as illustrations and metal sculptures. Derain died on September 9, 1954, in Paris.

Derain’s first solo exhibition, which took place at the Galerie Paul Guillaume in Paris in 1916, was accompanied by a text by Guillaume Apollinaire. Among the many subsequent exhibitions of his work are those at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1952); Musée national d’art moderne, Paris (1954–44); Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, and Royal Academy of Arts, London (1967); Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris (1981); and Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (2007).