Kees van Dongen (1877-1968), who was born in Holland but who became a naturalized Frenchman, began his career as a Fauvist painter, later acquiring a reputation as a portraitist and socialite.

Cornelis Theodorus Marie ("Kees") van Dongen was born at Delfshaven, a suburb of Rotterdam, on January 26, 1877. Showing early artistic promise, he enrolled at the Académie des Beaux-Arts of Rotterdam in 1892. During his four-year course of study there he became acquainted with the Dutch old-master tradition as well as with the then-current Impressionist painting. He also contributed sketches to the newspaper Rotterdam Nieuwsblad, the first of many illustrations in his long career.

Encouraged by his friend and compatriot Siebe Ten Cate, van Dongen visited Paris in 1897 and found it so to his liking that late in 1899 he settled permanently in France. Shortly thereafter, he married a fellow painter, Augusta Preitinger, whom he had met at the...