André Derain—Modell für Malerei

In Paris at the end of the 19th century an insight gained sway that was as simple as it was to be influential. Painting is initially nothing more than paint on canvas. André Derain (1880—1954) was one of the first to draw artistic conclusions from this liberating knowledge. As a Fauvist, at Matisse’s side he enjoyed the liberty of breaking with traditions. Soon, this zest was to set the avant-gardes of the following decades in motion. Painter-sculptor Derain, however, did not stick with the revolt. Because from his own experience he knew how they could be mis-deployed, he let the international brigades proclaiming the various isms ride past without himself saddling up. A native of Paris, he was more interested in forging credible links back to tradition rather than in abolishing it. While the Cubists put ›form-crushing‹ through all its possible paces, he was already busy trying to regain the image. In Derain, the great French painting tradition found its medium, not in order to restore, but to transform it. As the eminence gris of the École de Paris, he nevertheless distanced himself from it. Through Degas he linked his figures back to Ingres without in the process neglecting the achievements of a Cézanne. From there, the path continues to Classical Rome, Medieval Church painting, and the Italian Renaissance. While Picasso increasingly celebrated the inspiration of the moment, Derain plucked the all-the-darker strings of enduring time. His drawings, paintings, sculptures, and stage-sets combine to form an oeuvre that to this day rejects any clear art historical categorization. A friend of Alberto Giacometti and Balthus, Derain devised an image of man in an age where such was felt to have been lost. In the monumentality of even his small-format images we can discern a difference that is crucial to their assessment. It derives from the quality of how he references tradition. Merely adhering to a tradition is to bring it to a standstill. Such ossification leads to kitsch. However, if like Derain you continue a grand tradition then you manage to duly unsettle your viewers. He achieves what the German Expressionists lacked the power to tackle. His images repel any concept of progress, which itself has long since become a cliché and only engenders further clichés. Derain’s view of tradition becomes the model for those painters who took it up after his death or will do so in the future.

The exhibition André Derain—Modell für Malerei will be on view from 10 SEP through 7 NOV, 2026.

The show is accompanied by a catalogue with texts by Mėta Valiušaitytė, Danièle Cohn and Alberto Giacometti.