Aux Courses, Deauville. At the Races, Deauville. The Saddling Enclosure. by Raoul Dufy, 1877-1953

Raoul Dufy, 1877-1953
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Aux Courses, Deauville. At the Races, Deauville. The Saddling Enclosure.

Original lithograph in black ink. C.1926. Signed in pencil. Numbered (13) in pencil from the edition of 20 impressions only. Also dedicated in pencil: A Rainey. Printed at the studio of Duchatel, Paris C.1926. Very rare.

Excellent strong impression. On very heavy pale cream wove paper. Excellent condition; the very faintest suggestion of time discolouration at the extreme outer sheet edges. Full margins; sheet 22x28 1/2ins. Image approx: 16 1/2 x 22ins. (415x558mm)

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This is one of the most characteristic, and rarest, lithographs in Dufy?s monochrome oeuvre. Only printed in an edition of 20 impressions we know of just three examples, including this, which have appeared on the market in the last 15 or so years.

Racing was one of the favourite themes of Dufy?s art from the 1920?s onwards. In the aftermath of the First War, and as a way of expressing the relief of mankind of having survived the atrocities of that time, he sought themes which expressed the joy of living. The movement and free power of the horses, and the patterns of form and light created by the relaxed crowds, seemed to him to encapsulate all that was beautiful and worthwhile in the inconsequential aspects of life.

Dufy was a wonderful draughtsman, with an extremely fine sense of line. It was this which formed the appeal of lithography for him. In lithographic chalk the variations of tone within the stroke, and the range of densities in shading and highlight, are even more marked than in simple chalk on paper. Dufy exploited the qualities of the black chalk line to the full in his monochrome lithographs which are masterworks of their genre in the 1920?s and 30?s.