Maurice De Vlaminck 1876-1958

French painter, printmaker, draughtsman and writer. His nature, character, tastes and way of life were in perfect harmony with the freedom, daring and violence of his painting. He was brought up in a musical environment: his father was a violin teacher and his mother, was a piano teacher. He studied music and played the double-bass in his regimental band. From 1892 he began to take an interest in painting, though he worked as a mechanic and became a racing cyclist (Artnet).

He was a professional cyclist until his athletic career was cut short when he contracted Typhoid fever in 1896. Obliged to support his family, he gave violin lessons and eventually joined the military. It was during one of his military leaves at Chatou when he met André Derain. Vlaminck had little art training, and only began to paint seriously after collaborating with Derain. His artistic style was strongly influenced by Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Cézanne (Renoirinc).

Henri Matisse, Derain, and Vlaminck created the Fauvist art movement, marked by bold, non-naturalistic colors and seemingly chaotic compositions. He had a love for pure color and often used thick applications of paint squeezed directly from the tube onto the canvas, resulting in pure, intense colors. He exhibited with the Fauves at the Salon d'Automne in 1905. It was after this exposition that his financial situation began to gradually improve. The Fauve movement was short-lived, and by 1908 Vlaminck's compositions were becoming more orderly, with more subdued colors (Wikipedia).

His first one-artist exhibition took place in 1907. He mostly painted landscapes. He also wrote novels, memoirs and collected African art. He also published a few novels for which Derain made illustrations and even wrote some poetry (Renoirinc).

Immediately following World War I, he retired to the country, where he had always wanted to live because of his love for nature. He continued to travel with Derain during the later years of his life and published dozens of autobiographical accounts of his life and his experiences with other artists (Renoirinc). Shortly before his death, Vlaminck went to Atelier Mourlot in Paris and worked with Master Printer Charles Sorlier to prepare editions of lithographs of the paintings by which he wanted to be remembered (artsmia). Vlaminck died of old age in Rueil-la-Gadelière on October 11, 1958.