Unalloyed delight

André Derain (1880–1954) has a somewhat mixed reputation. He is widely praised for his early paintings, done when he worked alongside Matisse and Vlaminck and they took the art world by the throat with their Fauve extremism, but his later work is largely dismissed. To quote the Yale Dictionary of Art & Artists, it ‘combined traditional modes with modern sketchiness attractive to those who seek academic assurances in new art’. Fairly slighting, but, in some cases at least, justified. Derain’s post-war work was certainly unadventurous, but then he had determined to be the solid classical reactionary. What we need now is a well-chosen retrospective of his entire career to highlight its undoubted strengths, rather than dwell upon its weaknesses. It’s the kind of exhibition the Academy could do with distinction, and the Tate used to take pride in, before it began to sink beneath a superfluity of curators. In the meantime we are stuck with the stereotype, though this has its compensations.