Provenance
Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris, probably acquired directly from the artist. Louis Lion & Co., New York, by Feb. 1957 [verso inscription; this and the following according to letter from Knoedler and Co., Apr. 8, 1975, copy in curatorial file]; sold to Knoedler & Co., New York, Feb. 1957; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1960.
Accession Number
12402
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
54.8 × 76.4 cm (21 9/16 × 30 1/16 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Worcester Sketch Fund
Background & Context
Background Story
André Derain's "Cagnes" (1910) is an oil on canvas depicting the hilltop village of Cagnes-sur-Mer on the French Riviera. By 1910 his style was evolving from Fauvist intensity toward a more structured approach influenced by Cézanne. This painting shows the village perched on its hill, the buildings simplified into blocks of color, the landscape reduced to essential planes. The palette is more restrained than his Fauvist works—ochres, greens, blues—but the colors remain sonorous and expressive. The brushwork is more deliberate, building form through carefully placed touches of paint. Cagnes was a popular subject for artists; Renoir spent his final years there. Derain's treatment acknowledges the Impressionist tradition while moving decisively beyond it toward a more analytical mode of seeing.
Cultural Impact
Derain's 1910 landscapes mark a crucial moment in modern painting, when the lessons of Fauvism and Cézanne were being synthesized into a new pictorial language that would influence later developments.
Why It Matters
Cagnes captures a moment of transition in Derain's art and in modern painting—the move from color-driven expression to structure-driven composition, from sensation to analysis.
