From 29th November, 2019 to 4th May, 2020

Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) is one of the most important French artists of the twentieth century. Painter, draftsman, ceramist, fabric designer, decorator, he knew, just as Gauguin did too, how to eliminate the boundaries between major and minor art. The exhibition, on display from 29 November to 4 May, 2020, at the Museum of Fine Arts, presents nearly 300 works from a private collection.

The works presented in this exhibition reflect a multifaceted career, but which was always dominated by the subjects held dear to Dufy, a true virtuoso of the variation on the same theme in different techniques.

The sea, regattas, music and festivities decked with bunting that can be seen in the paintings and drawings of the first room, all attest to his strong attachment to light and colour. In the areas that follow, another facet can be discovered of this artist who freely experimented in the field of decorative arts, as can be seen by his famous fresco La Fée Electricité (The Electricity Fairy). He collaborated with the fashion designer Paul Poiret and the Bianchini-Férier silk company, one of the main houses in Lyon. About twenty dresses and sixty fabrics give a glimpse of the boldness and precision of Dufy's ideas that provided such impetus for the inventiveness of renowned couturiers in the Roaring Twenties.

This exhibition is an invitation to dive into the diversity of the work of a champion of modernity and the joy of life. As the great modernist writer Gertrude Stein said, "Raoul Dufy is pleasure."