Raoul DUFY LE QUAI, MARSEILLE, 1903 Born and raised in Le Havre during the first twenty years of his life, Raoul Dufy had an intimate acquaintance with the atmosphere of that harbor town. He also worked there for five years starting in 1891 as an official dealing with imports. He had plenty of time to haunt the busy docks and contemplate the maneuvers of huge sailing ships, impregnating his spirit with an atmosphere that would remain with him throughout his life. His youthful experience perhaps explains why his work makes constant reference to the sea and its attendant themes. The Baigneuses and Regates series are the most well known, but there are many others: the Plages or Baies paintings of popular seaside resorts, and also innumerable inclusions of shells, sea goddesses, and fish in his paintings, drawings, and ceramics. Raoul Dufy's began his career as a landscape painter in 1898 with some watercolors representing the harbor of Le Havre. Thanks to a scholarship, he moved to Paris in 1900 and entered the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Between 1900 and 1903 he traveled a great deal in the south of France and, of course, in Normandy where he executed many studies in watercolor and oil. The famous Plages de Sainte-Adresse series, with its emphasis on light and its effects, was painted in an Impressionist vein. At this time Raoul Dufy's style was still in a transitional phase. He evolved rapidly, and by the end of 1902 his style becomes bolder and stronger while still seeking to maintain form. The painter used this style to execute Les Grands Boulevards in 1903 representing a carnival crowd as well as Le Quai - Marseille with its strolling figures. Dufy paints the crowds of Marseilles with a supple touch and vibrant, high-colored tones. A touch of the sailor's spirit inspires Dufy to include the masts of the yachts that blend into a sky crisscrossed by rigging. This painting, a precursor to his mature work, announces two of his most important future motifs: crowds and ships. LITERATURE: Dora Perez-Tibi, Dufy, Paris, Flammarion, 1997