André Derain

Landscape near Barbizon

c.1922

© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2020

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Not on display

Artist: André Derain 1880–1954
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 708 × 727 mm
frame: 1113 × 1527 × 60 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1935
Reference: N04784

Display caption

In 1919 when Derain was demobbed after serving in the First World War, he returned to his painting career. He rejected the brilliant colours he had used before the war and used instead quieter colour harmonies. He was an admirer of early French landscape painting, particularly the work of Courbet, Corot, and his contemporary Renoir. In 1921 Derain introduced a new softness of form into his work and this landscape is a good example of that. It was painted in the Forest of Fontainebleau, close to the village of Barbizon, a venue favoured by mid-nineteenth century French painters, such as J.F. Millet and T. Rousseau, who are now seen as forerunners of Impressionism.

Gallery label, September 2004

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Catalogue entry

Andr? Derain 1880-1954

N04784 Landscape near Barbizon c.1922-3

Inscribed 'a derain' b.r.
Oil on canvas, 23 5/8 x 28 5/8 (60 x 73)
Purchased from Hugh Willoughby (Clarke Fund) 1935
Prov: With Paul Guillaume, Paris (purchased from the artist); ...; Shigetaro Fukushima, Paris; [?with Paul Rosenberg, Paris]; Hugh Willoughby, Hove
Repr: Jardin des Arts, No.8, June 1955, p.477 as 'Paysage'

This picture was purchased under the title 'Landscape'. The artist said that it was painted in the Forest of Fontainebleau close to the village of Barbizon. (Letter of 15 May 1953).

It did not pass through the hands of D.-H. Kahnweiler, who took all Derain's production from 1920 into 1922, and was therefore probably painted either later in 1922 or in 1923.

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.169, reproduced p.169