Kees van Dongen was a Dutch-French artist and an important member of the Fauvist movement. His early works show inspiration from the Hague School specifically Rembrandt, which is reflect in his sombre-toned landscapes. However, his work gradually evolved into a rough pointillist style.
After moving to Paris in 1897, he began frequenting the bars and cabarets of Montemarte, where his expressive use of line and colour gradually became defining features of his style. His paintings through 1905-1910 are considered by some to be his most important works, with themes predominantly centred on Parisian nightlife. He painted dancers, singers, masquerades, and theatre, which gained him a reputation for his sensuous portraits, especially of women.
His style featured elongated figures, exaggerated eyes, vivid and unrealistic colours that captured both glamour and underlying excess of early 20th century Paris. Where other Fauves used colour to dissolve form, van Dongen used it to expose character, using distortion and intensity to reveal and much about his subjects' restlessness and vanity as their outward elegance. His reputation made him a vital figure within Fauvism.
