Kees van Dongen

This exhibition surveys the development of Kees van Dongen's art from his apprenticeship years to the peak of his career. Van Dongen was for a short time a colleague of Picasso's at the Bateau-Lavoir, where the two had ongoing aesthetic exchanges that are illustrated in the exhibition.

Kees van Dongen played a key role in the most important artistic movements of the early twentieth century, particularly within Fauvism. This exhibition traces the artist's progress, starting from his years as an apprentice and culminating at the peak of his career. A colleague of Picasso's at the Bateau-Lavoir for a short period of time, the links and aesthetic experiments in which both painters engaged are well represented in the show.

Born on the outskirts of Rotterdam, most of Van Dongen's career unfolded in Paris, where he settled in 1897. The extravagance and intensity of his canvases would be evoked elsewhere, especially by the German Expressionists of the Die Brücke group. Furthermore, his Orientalism, contemporary to that of Matisse, placed Van Dongen at the forefront of the avant-garde. His works, at once brilliant and shameless, often compared to 'prodigious excesses of light, warmth and colour', bear witness to Van Dongen's personal style in the field of modern art, alongside those of Matisse and Picasso.