From Avant-Garde to Beau Monde. The Paintings of Kees van Dongen

Kees van Dongen always presented himself as an untrained artist who followed his natural intuition and worked spontaneously, without analysing what he was doing. The development of Van Dongen's artistic ability has been a contentious subject, partly due to his own indifferent attitude. He was never willing to cooperate on any documentation, and considered only his most recent work to be important. Van Dongen hardly ever dated his work. And he would sometimes antedate certain works, as other artists have done with a view to enhancing their position in the artistic vanguard. For years his place among the Parisian avant-garde was a subject of debate, and above all there were doubts about his role as a Fauvist. Extensive art-historical research into the decisive early period of his artistic career, in which his drawings played a crucial role, has shown that his position as a vanguard artist was firmly established by about 1905.