Nu rose

Nu rose, at the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, dates to around 1930 and belongs to Dufy's extended series of painted nudes produced across the interwar decades. The pink nude — warm, untroubled, placed within a decorative interior — represents Dufy's commitment to an art of pleasure and light that deliberately refused the psychological weight that German Expressionism and Surrealism were simultaneously bringing to the female figure. His nudes were frequently described by critics as superficial; they defended their own pleasure with unabashed confidence.

The pink flesh tones are achieved through thin washes of warm colour that create a luminous, light-filled figure without recourse to the heavy impasto of Expressionist body painting. Dufy's line — sure, economical, identifying rather than describing — establishes the contours of the figure within the wash-defined environment.