Kees van Dongen  (Dutch, 1877-1968) 

Kees van Dongen (Dutch, 1877–1968) was a leading member of the controversial Fauves group, whose members also included French artists Henri Matisse (1869–1954), Henri Emilien Rousseau (1875–1933), Robert Delaunay (1885–1941), and Edouard Vuillard (1868–1940). Known specifically for his portraiture, van Dongen painted sensuous and often garish representations of the fashionable French bourgeoisie, and the wealth that permitted their leisurely lifestyle. His subjects included Arletty, Leopold III of Belgium, Louis Barthou, Sacha Guitry, Anna de Noailles, and Paul Maurice Chevalier. In 1926, van Dongen was awarded the Legion of Honour, and in 1927 the Order of the Crown of Belgium. In the Spring 2009, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Canada held a retrospective of van Dongen’s work, Van Dongen: A Fauve in the City.