1938

Window on the Promenade des Anglais, Nice

French, 1877 - 1953

In this work Dufy depicts the view from the closed window of his studio in the Hôtel Suisse, which looked out over the Promenade des Anglais, the celebrated shoreline road fringed with palm trees that hugs the curved Bay of Angels in downtown Nice. The work owes an equal debt to Henri Matisse's earlier hotel window paintings and to Piet Mondrian's severely geometric abstractions. The rectilinear windowpanes, placed parallel to the picture plane, serve as a framing device for the hillside city, which Dufy has rendered in saturated colors dominated by the vibrant blue sea and sky.