Andre Derain (1880-1954) French, Etching and Drypoint. Self portrait from 1913. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a similar example in their collection.

Overall size: 12 X 9 1/4 in.

Sight size: 3 1/2 X 2 1/2 in.

#1605 .

Andre Derain was born in 1880 at Chatou, an artists’ colony at the gates of Paris, France. His father was a successful patissier and town councilor, affording Derain a middle-class education focused on a future in engineering. Derain, however, was drawn to painting, and when Henri Matisse saw some of his work he convinced his father to nurture this talent instead. In 1906 Derain met Picasso and signed a contract with Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, Picasso’s dealer. He and his new wife Alice moved to Montmartre to be closer to the artistic hub of Paris, becoming two of the original Fauves (“wild beasts”) of the new movement. Derain shifted between genres easily, exploring pointillism while simultaneously emulating Van Gogh and Cezanne, and spent hours copying in the Louvre, receiving the Carnegie Prize in 1928. During the 1930s he gradually lost touch with many of his old friends amidst the deteriorating political climate, and lived in an 18th-century mansion outside of Paris. 1941 saw the birth of an illegitimate son, the child of his favorite model. During the Nazi Occupation he divided his time between several households: his own studio, the house he had provided for his wife, and the apartment of his mistress. He was one of few artists who accepted an invitation to lecture in Germany in exchange for the release of French prisoners, but the Nazi propaganda produced from his tour made him persona non grata with the Allied public and painters alike. After the war, embittered by this spiritual exile, he sired another illegitimate child with a different model and began to gorge on food and drive Bugatti sports cars recklessly around the countryside. After his wife left him in 1954 and he contracted a debilitating eye infection, he was hit by a car and died two months later from his injuries in Garches, France.