"WHERE IS THIS BOWER BESIDE THE SILVER THAMES?" 1930.
39 3/4x49 1/2 inches, 101x125 3/4 cm. Chorley & Pickersgill Ltd., Leeds. Condition B+: repaired tears, creases and pin holes in margins, some into text; creases and minor abrasions in image. Mounted on thin linen. Framed.
Trained as an academic painter, Dupas' Neoclassicist style manifested itself in his memorable Mannerist imagery. His signature aesthetic was rendering extraordinary women with elongated necks in pastoral settings, employing sophisticated layers of shadow and minimal use of color. Dupas' work, quintessential of the refined and luxurious French Art Deco style, so captivated his contemporaries, that he was called upon to help decorate the interiors of many buildings, public spaces and a mural and glass work for the famed French ocean liner, Normandie. A visitor to Dupas' studio once noted a quotation from Voltaire pinned to wall: "Decadence is produced by doing things the easy way and by being lazy about doing them well, by being sated with beauty, and by a taste for the bizarre" (French Art Deco p. 90). Plakat Kunst p. 120, Richmond p. 116.
