Kees van Dongen was a Dutch-French painter and a key figure of the Fauvist movement. He was born in Rotterdam and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts before moving to Paris in 1899. He exhibited at the 1905 Salon d’Automne alongside Derain, Vlaminck, and Matisse (who reportedly loathed him).

His bold use of colour, form, and subject matter, often portraying Paris’s red-light district, earned him a reputation as ‘the painter of brothels.’ Vlaminck described him as the ‘historian of all the cynical libertinage… of prostitutes, hysterical worldlings, unsatisfied strangers [and] disoriented exotics.’

After the First World War, his vivid palette and fluid Fauvist style made him highly sought after for society portraits. He famously claimed that his success stemmed from elongating women, slimming them, and enlarging their jewellery.

During the Second World War, his art was popular with Nazi collectors which made him unpopular for a while. But, his reputation endured and he is still widely represented in major collections including MoMA, the Rijksmuseum, and the National Gallery of Art.

His work with Atelier Mourlot in lithography proved an ideal medium for his saturated colour and sharp lines, preserving the immediacy of his paintings. Through prints, his favourite subjects – dancers, performers and the glamour of Parisian nightlife – reached a broader audience than his often controversial paintings alone.