Les lépreuses

Artists, intellectuals and writers from every corner of the world were making their way to the French capital from the end of the nineteenth century onwards: Paris was then the cultural centre of Europe. Among them were many Dutchmen, like the artists Jongkind and Van Gogh in the nineteenth century, and painters like Mondriaan and Karel Appel in the twentieth century. Kees van Dongen, born in Delfshaven, also decided to leave the Netherlands, settling down in Paris in 1900.

He hesitantly began a career as an artist there by submitting illustrations to magazines like L'assiette au beurre.

Obscene

Van Dongen claimed to have learned to speak French between the sheets of the prostituteshe frequented. But not only did these ladies teach him to speak French, they also provided him with a welcome source of inspiration. In daring paintings Van Dongen portrayed the fringes of society, a world of alcohol and prostitution. His preference for paintings of nude women – prostitutes, but also his own wife and his mistresses – took place under the motto 'the female body is the most beautiful landscape', which caused scandals on several occasions. In Paris in 1913 as well as in Rotterdam in 1949, 'Torse', a painting of his all but naked wife Augusta (Guus), was removed from exhibitions for being too obscene.

Fauvist illustrations

Van Dongen didn't become truly successful until famous publisher and art dealer Ambroise Vollard organised an exhibition of his work in 1904, and especially after the Salon d'Automne of 1905, an exhibition that included canvases by Matisse, De Vlaminck and Derain, alongside works by Van Dongen. The influential art critic Louis Vauxcelles dubbed the creators of the lively, colourful paintings with simplified presentations 'fauves' (wild animals), thereby creating the art movement 'Fauvism'. Van Dongen's fauvist paintings were influenced by Toulouse-Lautrec, Steinlen and Daumier. They became very popular, and Van Dongen entered the highest circles of the art world. He also befriended Picasso, and authors like Apollinaire were frequent guests in his house.

Although Van Dongen is most famous for his paintings, he also occupied himself throughout his life with outstanding graphic work, such as lithography and engraving. He was very active, especially after World War II, as a portrait painter and a book illustrator. He was already experimenting with new printing techniques in the turbulent 1920s. His favourite subjects were women, portraits, fashionable scenes and flowers. Later some considered him an 'Andy Warhol avant-la-lettre': not only due to his unusual printing techniques, but especially because he chose celebrities as his subjects, such as his neighbour Anatole France, whom he portrayed as a decrepit old man, to the dismay of many. In the 1930s Van Dongen stopped experimenting with (for instance) pochoir, using lithography for nearly all of his graphic work. In the 1940s Van Dongen illustrated numerous famous books with his lithographs. Examples are Voltaire's La princess de Babylone (1948), Anatole France's La révolte des anges (1951) and Charles Baudelaire's Les fleurs du mal (1968).