Sitting Nude

Born in Chatou. France. Worked and lived in Paris

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At early age Derain began to study painting. But his parents insisted to have a proper education and Andre started to study engineering at the Académie Camillo meanwhile attending painting classes under Eugène Carrière where he met Matisse. 

In 1900, he met and shared a studio with Maurice de Vlaminck. After a military service Matisse persuaded Derain's parents to allow Andre to abandon his engineering career and devote himself solely to painting. Derain attended the Académie Julian.

Derain and Matisse worked together through the summer of 1905 in the Mediterranean village of Collioure and later that year displayed their highly innovative paintings at the Salon d'Automne. The critic Louis Vauxcelles called their works as les Fauves, or "the wild beasts”. It was the start of the Fauvist movement. 

In 1906, the art dealer Ambroise Vollard sent Derain to London to produce a series of city landscapes.

In 1907 art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler purchased Derain's entire studio, granting Derain financial stability. He experimented with stone sculpture and moved to Montmartre to be near his friend Pablo Picasso and other noted artists.

At Montmartre, Derain began to shift from the Fauvist palette to more muted tones, showing the influence of Cubism and Paul Cézanne.

Around 1910s Derain's work began overtly reflecting his study of the Old Masters. After the First World War Derain won new acclaim as a leader of the renewed classicism then ascendant. With the wildness of his Fauve years far behind, he was admired as an upholder of tradition. He worked with Diaghilev painting for the Ballets Russes.

The 1920s marked the height of his success. He was awarded the Carnegie Prize in 1928 for his Still-life with Dead Game.

Derain died on 8 September in 1954