Adrien Delestre in partnership with Cassius&Co presents André Derain and The Stage, an exhibition of paintings and works on paper that reviews the French artist’s lifelong fascination with the theatre, opening on Thursday 12th September 2024.

From his interest in the dithyrambic traditions of Greek tragedy to the costumes and set designs he produced for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, the stage is one of the most persistent sources of content in the work André Derain. The studies he made throughout his life of dancers and other theatrical figures demonstrate the fantastic diversity of his methods, from his reworking of the classical to his radical Fauvism and long beyond.

Latterly, Derain’s use of the theatre as source can be seen to have had its own effect. In his late works the painting itself becomes a stage, with figures and objects arranged as though by a director of mise-en-scène, one with ancient fresco and the art of Byzantium on his mind. Here the viewer’s perspective is fixed and the scene revealed as though by a curtain, and we can say that pictorial space has, for Derain, become a theatre, and painting the stage on which he performs.

André Derain and The Stage will be presented alongside a concurrent book exhibition of rare dramatic works, as well as a section dedicated to rare books on André Derain.

Adrien Delestre is a gallerist specialising in late 19th- and early 20th-century French art, and engages with both cross-historical projects and contemporary art. He is also a member of the Comité André Derain.

For more information please contact fb@cassiusandco.com or adelestre@artfrancais.com