Raoul Dufy

Raoul Dufy was perhaps the most stylish of the Fauvists, a group of French artists led by Matisse and Derain. Dufy was born in Normandy and worked at a coffee-importing company in his teens to put himself through evening classes at the municipal art school. He later won a scholarship to the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he developed his bright, dynamic, refreshingly optimistic style. He soon developed a reputation as a successful and disciplined commercial artists, and his art appeared everywhere from public murals and tapestries to ceramic designs and book illustrations.