Montreal Museum Presents Art Of Kees Van Dongen

In the light of new research and previously little-known works, the artist's career will be traced from his early days in Holland to his move to Paris and his participation in the famous Salon d'Automne of 1905, which established Fauvism as a new movement in modern art. Arresting paintings of nudes and flirtatious women that retain the sumptuous colours and rich impasto of his Fauvist works will be examined through the themes of exoticism, spectacle and Orientalism. The show will also include an impressive selection of large society portraits of the most celebrated personalities of the Roaring Twenties, which will illustrate his mature period. After Monaco and Montreal, the exhibition will travel to Barcelona's Picasso Museum.

The Montreal presentation will present, for the first time in North America, the outstanding collection of works by Van Dongen recently acquired by the Nouveau Musee national de Monaco, including the magisterial Spotted Chimera (1895-1907) and the Tabarin Wrestlers (1907-1908), an astonishing canvas that has not been exhibited for over fifty years, and Tango of the Archangel (1922-1935).