Tête de Femme

Born in Chatou, a small town outside of Paris, Derain knew very early in life that he wanted to study art; in his teens he could be found frequenting the Louvre to examine the early masters or ‘‘primitives.” From 1898 to 1900 he studied with Matisse, whose influence continued to affect his art for years to come. He also met Vlaminck during this time and shared not only a studio but the common belief that the emotional and instinctual took precedence over imitation of the real.' As a result of his exposure to African art around 1904, heads and figures in his work began to reveal primitive characteristics: the etching Téte de Femme suggests the clearly defined separate planes of an African mask.
For his selective accentuation of forms in order to stress their plastic, sculptural qualities, Cézanne was a particularly important influence on Derain; likewise, the works of Gauguin, with their sinuous rhythms and flat tones, were significant in the evolution of his style. Around 1907 Picasso's early Cubist explorations directed Derain toward more geometric forms. But ironically, as the fully developed Cubist style shook European art to its foundations, Derain withdrew and returned to the reexamination of reality, rejecting abstraction. He argued that the slavish imitation that normally accompanied the depiction of reality could be avoided if it were viewed through one’s individual temperament. Few of Derain's avant-garde contemporaries agreed with this stance, however, and he was left to pursue his own individual style for the next forty years.
Dérain’s etching of a woman’s head from his Cubist phase oscillates between the purely linear and fuller sculptural modeling. The hand, indicated only by a few sketchy lines, reads as flat form, while the rhythmically curving planes of head and hair—with their curiously warped torsion—have the three-dimensionality of high relief sculpture. The velvety, softly graded accents of drypoint burr enhance the modeling.
Nancy Green, The Modern Art of the Print, p. 56