Kees van Dongen

Cornelis Theodorus Maria 'Kees' van Dongen (26 January 1877 – 28 May 1968) was a Dutch-French painter and one of the Fauves at the controversial 1905 Salon d'Automne exhibition. He gained a reputation for his sensuous, at times garish, portraits.

Kees van Dongen in his studio circa 1910

Quotes

• Painting is the most beautiful lie.
  • in: Modern Dutch painting: an introduction, Netherlands Information Service, (1960), p. 26
    • Alternative:
      Painting is the most beautiful of lies.
    • in: Dossier pédagogique, Service culturel, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Mars 2011

• Life is beautiful, and this work is even more beautiful than life.
  • in: Modern Dutch painting: an introduction, Netherlands Information Service, (1960), p. 26

• The essential thing is to elongate the women and especially to make them slim. After that it just remains to enlarge their jewels. They are ravished.
  • in: Dossier pédagogique, Service culturel, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Mars 2011

Quotes about Kees van Dongen

• His sarcastic images made no attempt to disguise moral and physical defects. Van Dongen created a feminine type that was half drawing-room prostitute, half sidewalk princess; her murky eyes, livid face with blood- red mouth, spindly arms, and exaggeratedly thin body adorned with sparkling jewels and veiled in silk or tulle, or stripped cynically nude.
  • Praeger encyclopedia of art, Vol 2, 1971, p. 550