Kees van Dongen Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

A beautifully coloured watercolour on paper circa 1900 by Kees van Dongen of a nude reclining on a bed. Signed lower right. Framed dimensions are 17 inches high by 25 inches wide. Kees van Dongen's father first placed him in a school of industrial design and decorative art in Rotterdam. Later, in 1894-1895, he became a pupil of J. Striening and J.G. Heyberg at the academy of fine arts in Rotterdam. His first paintings of this period were signed C. Van Dongen and from 1896 he published drawings, often of street women, in local newspapers, notably the Rotterdamsche Nieuwsblad where they created a scandal. After a trip to New York in July 1897, he spent time in Paris, living with Siebe Ten Cate, who introduced him to the art dealers Le Barc de Bouteville and 'le père Soulier'. However, lack of resources obliged him to resort to menial work as a porter at Les Halles, a furniture remover, a portrait painter on the terraces of cafes and a professional wrestler. In March 1900 he settled in Paris for good and in 1901 he married his comrade at the École des Beaux-Arts Augusta Preitinger, called Guus. In 1905 his daughter Augusta was born and nicknamed Dolly. In 1905-1906 he joined up with Picasso, though this friendship had no influence on his own artistic development, and settled at the Bateau-Lavoir where Pierre Mac-Orlan, André Salmon and Max Jacob also lived, and where Apollinaire, who disliked him, and Dérain, Vlaminck and others were regular visitors. He often went with Picasso to the Médrano circus, where he made pictures of clowns...