Provenance
Ambroise Vollard, Paris, probably 1905 [stamp on verso]. Gerrard White, London and Paris, by April 18, 1991 [Receipt of Object # 37901 in curatorial file]; through Stoppenbach and Delestre, London [Receipt of Object #37901 in curatorial file]; sold to Art Institute, 1991.
Accession Number
111812
Medium
Pen and brush and black ink on cream laid paper
Dimensions
47.6 × 62.4 cm (18 3/4 × 24 5/8 in.)
Classification
pen and ink drawings
Credit Line
Margaret Fisher Endowment
Background & Context
Background Story
André Derain's "Sailboats at Collioure" (1905) dates from the most intensely Fauvist period of his career. Collioure was the site of the legendary summer of 1905 when Derain and Henri Matisse painted side by side, developing the radical color experiments that became Fauvism. This drawing captures the harbor with sailboats at rest, the masts creating a vertical rhythm against the horizontal expanse of water. The pen work is energetic and spontaneous, with brush adding broad areas of black ink creating strong contrasts. Although this is a drawing rather than a painting, it captures the Fauvist spirit: the emphasis on immediate sensation, the rejection of academic finish, the determination to record what the artist felt rather than what he saw.
Cultural Impact
The Collioure summer of 1905 was a watershed moment in modern art—the birth of Fauvism—and this drawing documents the location where one of the most radical artistic revolutions began.
Why It Matters
This ink drawing captures the energy of Derain's Fauvist period, the spontaneous line and bold contrasts embodying the revolutionary spirit of the summer that changed modern painting.
