Woman in a Chemise

André Derain, 1906

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Artist: André Derain (French, 1880–1954)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 100 × 81 cm
Museum: SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
Rights: Public Domain Mark

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.