Family

Roots

Fernand Fleuret begins one of his writings on Dufy with an episode with Elemir Bourges. According to Fleuret, Bourges urged the painter must have been Scottish because of his name and look.

Raoul Dufy himeself is French, but his surname is certainly Gaelic in origin. It is a French variant of the Irish name, Duffy, which derives from O'Dubhthaigh, descendant of Dubhthach, the black or dark one.

The artist, who was born in Le Havre, himself connected his origins with his own interests.

La mer et la musique sont mes deux thèmes. La musique, vous savez pourquoi?... La Méditerranée, à cause de mes origines irlandaises et normandes!

According to his mention above, Dufy thought his two favorite motifs, sea and music, were originated from his Irish and Norman roots. This notion is a little unscientific, though, it shows that he felt his roots very important. Because he considered his own tastes depended on the environment of his childhood, that is to say, his family.

Siblings

In many biographies of Raoul Dufy, two mistakes can be found very often.

1. Dufy was the eldest.
2. There were nine children between Léon Marius Dufy and Marie-Eugénie Ida Lemmonier.

Strangely monographs written in English tend to describe that Dufy was the eldest. So do translations from English. However, from what Ms Anne Chapouthier of the Galerie Guillon-Laffaile wrote me on February 26, 2001, via email, it is wrong. I confirmed it by examing one of the registers kept in the municipal archives of Le Havre, thanks to Ms Sylvie Barrot in March, 2003.

This is a picture of the register of Dufy family in 1896. Here we can read the names and ages, Dufy Léon 50, Dufy Marie 46, Dufy Léon 21, Dufy Raoul 18, Dufy Gaston 16, Dufy Celine 13, and Dufy Marse 10.

Now let's see the list of Dufy's siblings. The names with spades (♠) are brothers and those with hearts (♥) are sisters. As some of them have been used the different names on the register, those names are put in square brackets. Dates of birth (b.) and death (d.) are also shown here.

• ♠ Léon (b. March 1, 1875 - d. March 3, 1938)
• ♠ Raoul (b. June 3, 1877 - d. March 23, 1953)
• ♠ Gaston (b. April 22, 1879 - d. June, 1959)
• ♥ Jeanne (b. June 24, 1881 - d. January 17, 1882)
• ♥ Suzanne [Celine] (b. November 17, 1882 - d. July 24, 1946)
• ♥ Madeleine [Marse] (b. March 11, 1886 - d. end of 1970)
• ♠ Jean (b. March 12, 1888 - d. April 20, 1964)
• ♥ Germaine [Ida] (b. September 5, 1889 - d. February 1, 1981)
• ♥ Jeanne (b. November 6, 1890 - d. March 16, 1951)
• ♥ Henriette [Blanche] (b. January 30, 1892 - d. July 7, 1961)
• ♥ Alice (b. October 21, 1893 - d. October 5, 1895)

As Jeanne and Alice passed away early, many biographers exclude these two girls. Therefore, they describe not eleven but nine. The only exception is the biography by Christian Briend in 1999, but it is a pity that he forgot to put the name, Germaine.