Galerie Louis Carré, Paris
Galerie Daniel Malingue, Paris
Galerie Nichido, Tokyo

Paris, Galerie Louis Carré, 1956, no. 6

Fanny Guillon-Laffaille, Raoul Dufy, catalogue raisonné des aquarelles, gouaches et pastels, vol. 1, Pariꦰs, 1982, no. 941, illustrated p. 343 

Good condition. Work is laid down on backing sheet. There is a mat stain about ½ inch in from the edges. Some fox marks in the upper left part of the sky. Under UV light, some of the original pigments fluoresce, but no apparent inpainting. Colors are bright and fresh.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

From the beginning of the 1920s the pageantry of the racecourse became one of Dufy's favorite themes. Dufy frequented the horse races with leading𝔍 c🥃reators of fashion such as Paul Poiret and Bianchini who prodded the artist to study the fashionable ladies and gentleman who attended the races. Friends who accompanied Dufy on his expeditions to the track recalled that at this time he became more interested in the colors of the horses and jockeys, their movement, and in the animation of the spectators in the crowd.

In 1924 the evolution of Dufy's racecourse scenes can been examined, as the "figures became essences, wraiths, or like flowers, everything again given up to the crisp, jaunty interaction between green turf, red brick buildings, white railings, multi-colored crowds, green trees against blue sky with sprightly puffs of clouds" (Bryan Robertson, Raoul Dufy 1877-1953, 1963, p. 27). Le Défilé des partants à Deauville, executed in 1941, captures the fanfare and social exchange before the start of a big race.  "On the open track he was naturally led to divide the picture-space into vertical strips, of blue, green and yellow, for example... the crowd in the stands-these were rendered by a simple outline drowned by the mass of ambient color" (Dora Perez-Tibi, Dufy, New York, 1989, pp. 158-162).

In Le Défilé des Partants à Deauville, Dufy exhibits his talents in the technique of couleur-lumière, in ♏which black and white recede and color is propelled to the foreground. Dufy has brushed the foreground with large strokes of green used to define both the turf and the colorful dress of several figures.