Maurice de Vlaminck (French, 1876-1958)

De Vlaminck was a french painter. He is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve Movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904-1908 were united in their use of intense color. Vlaminck was born in Paris of ‘bohemian’ musical parents and he in turn became an accomplished musician.

For a time Vlaminck was a professional racing cyclist until he suffered a bout of typhoid fever in 1896 which abruptly curtailed his sporting career.

Nevertheless he did his military service between 1896-99 and it was only in 1900, when he met the painter André Derain, that he started to take art seriously.

He received very little formal art education and his style of painting largely developed through his collaboration with Derain with whom he shared a studio in Chatou. Vlaminck was much influenced by the Post-Impressionists, particularly by a major Van Gogh exhibition he saw in Paris in 1901.

Four years later he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne with a group of artists, including Derain, Matisse, Rouault and Marquet, who were collectively and ironically dubbed the Cage aux Fauves (Cage of Wild Beasts) because of their use of strong, vibrant, pure colours applied in an expressionistic and non-naturalistic way.

Despite his involvement with the Fauves before the Great War Vlaminck thereafter largely ignored most aspects of contemporary art movements and his typical subject matter became rural landscapes, often with overcast skies or storm scenes, lonely village streets or cottages and still-lifes. He continued to paint such subjects after he moved to the country where, having acquired a large farm, he took up agriculture.

Throughout his career Vlaminck was a prolific printmaker and illustrator, producing 105 woodcuts, 46 etchings and 175 lithographs.