Derain, André (1880-1954)
Madame Jean Renoir (Catherine Hessling)
c.1923
Oil on canvas, 90.4 x 75.2 cm
National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
This painting depicts the actress Catherine Hessling, wife of the film director Jean Renoir. Catherine Hessling was her stage name, while her real name was Andrée Madeleine Heuschling and she was known as “Dédée” to her close associates. Starting in 1915, she served as a model for Auguste Renoir, Jean‘s father, and she appears in many images of bathing from his final period.Jean first met Catherine at his father’s villa “Les Collettes” and he married her after his father’s death. She became an actress after her marriage, and acted in such roles as the lead in her husband’s film Nana. Around that time Derain changed his dealer, from Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler to Paul Guillaume. The sales prowess of his new dealer, combined with active mention of Derain in the writings of Guillaume’s friend the poet André Salmon, meant that Derain became a high-selling artist and attained a stable lifestyle, untroubled as he dedicated himself to painting. A number of landscape paintings, strongly influenced by Camille Corot, and portraits remain by Derain, all staged in a subdued palette in place of the harsh colors of the Fauvist palette. The nude, however, became his principal subject matter. These nudes were greatly inspired by the late works of Auguste Renoir. Derain is said to have exchanged this portrait for four small works by Renoir. Thus while it is hard to discern formal influence from Renoir in this work, the fact that the painting depicts Renoir‘s favored model makes it fascinating in terms of Derain‘s leanings towards Auguste Renoir. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no.113)
See also:
• Hessling, Catherine (1900-1979)