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"Dufy's fabrics were like a ray of sunlight on a gloomy day; they were embraced by the fashion
industry, giving it a note of fun and spontaneity that had not been seen before."
Sonia Delaunay, 1927
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| Poiret's evening cape La Perse, 1911, made from a printed Dufy velvet |
Raoul Dufy was one of the great innovators of 20th century textile design, but this
aspect of his work has remained relatively unknown.
This influential and generally unrecognized facet of Dufy’s
creation is thoroughly explored in the exhibition, which includes nearly 100 fabrics, and textile
designs created by Dufy from 1910 - 1930.
Dufy transformed the face of fashion and fabric design, formulated practically all modern fabric design
between 1909 and 1930, and his style most radically influenced the popular arts and the commercial design of the Western world.
Even today, his vision influences the color, design, texture and imagery of a wide range of products such as book covers,
perfumes, posters and stage decor, and textiles for furniture and clothing.
While working with Paul Poiret, the pioneering and innovative French fashion designer of the early
20th century, and then between 1912 and 1928 with Bianchini-Ferier (the leading French silk manufacturer) , Dufy
created a wealth of original Art Deco designs in silks, dress fabrics, and wall hangings.
It was his friendship with Poiret that first gave
Dufy the scope he needed to develop his talents. His fabrics immediately aroused great interest. Dufy's designs were
very different from the available printed silk fabrics which had small paisley or polka dot designs. Dufy's fabrics were stunning
and Poiret used them extensively in his fashions, creating magnificent coats, capes and dresses in sumptuous silk brocades
block-printed with large designs, such as La Perse; and when Poiret took his models to the races to publicize
them, they were the center of attraction.
"Dufy designed and carved woodcuts for me based on the illustrations
he had just created for Apollinaire's Bestiaire. I made dresses with the sumptuous materials printed from them................
Paul Poiret, En Habillant l'Epoque, Paris, 1930
Charles Bianchini, a partner in the leading French silk firm Bianchini-Ferier, based
in Lyons, noticed the fabrics Dufy had created for Poiret, and recognized their commercial significance. He was to make Dufy
one of the most influential 20th century textile designers.
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From 1911 onwards and for nearly 20 years, Dufy's creations
decorated thousands of square meters of silk and other fabrics, and his output at the time was widely recognized.
Yet, until recently, most studies of Dufy have not given this aspect of his work much attention, and usually they mention
it only very briefly.
Throughout the 1920s he created original Art Deco silks,
and many of his floral designs seemed as if they had been hand painted. He also created designs on woodblocks and in 1924
produced a series of silks using an 18th century style, with groups of figures performing different activities, surrounded
by arabesques and foliage.
Flowers were one of Dufy's favorite themes for dress fabrics.
In the early days he engraved the woodblocks and hand printed the fabrics himself. Particularly when he
first worked with Poiret, he was intensely interested in cubist preoccupations of form and design, and sought a very precise
balance between areas of color and space.
"I have said that a few other great artists helped to create a different
way of seeing things in our century, although I believe that Dufy from the examination of paintings and drawing as well as
from his own textile designs, has had the widest and deepest influence in applied art....... But Dufy works harder at various
forms of applied art than any other serious painter in our century and his achievement in the field of decorative art can
only be described as monumental. His work as a designer of fabrics, for example, is in my view, unparalleled in the
20th century......"
1983, Bryan Robertson
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It is impossible to make a clear distinction between Dufy, the painter, and Dufy the
textile designer and decorator. While the creations differ in their techniques, they have a common
style based on the essence of a representation where the real mingles with the imaginary.
While Dufy was always faithful to the same ideals, he was equally curious about new techniques,
and he had the same wish to use all the resources which were offered to him in order to execute a particular work.
In order to express his particular inclinations for composition, color and drawing, he freely worked in whatever
medium he felt was suitable, whether it was watercolor, oil paints on canvases, ceramics, walls or the pages of a book.
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The
Humanities Exchange, Montreal, Canada
T. 514-935-1228; F. 514-935-1299
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