Raymond DUNCAN (1874-1966) Lot n° 4

Dancers and goats Mixed media, block print on fabric, signed lower left 106 x 145 cm Raymond Duncan (1874-1966) was an American artist, poet, philosopher, photographer, craftsman, decorator, dancer and choreographer with a passion for ancient Greece and its way of life. He established his first community near Athens, with a self-sufficient economy based on weaving and making rugs, fabrics and clothing. He invented a simple loom, and by 1903 was wearing only antique-inspired clothes made from fabrics he had produced and dyed himself. During the Balkan War, he organized a refugee center. A theater enthusiast, Raymond Duncan settled in Paris, often traveling to Greece and the United States. In 1911, he founded the international cultural center Akademia Raymond Duncan, 31 rue de Seine, "a place open to all innovations in theater, literature, music and the plastic arts". It included an art print shop, a publishing house and an avant-garde art gallery. During the First World War, he helps over 10,000 Parisians to weave their clothes free of charge. He brings over a large number of hand-woven carpets from Greece, adorned with decorations he creates, adapted from ancient Greek styles. He also exhibits his fabrics, dyed and decorated with block-printed motifs, which he decorates the walls with. According to him, you can "make yourself what you need and not need what you can't make". While conceding that this goal is unattainable in absolute terms, he advocates the harmonious blossoming of man through the development of his gifts. He opened a school for the rehabilitation of wounded soldiers in Nice, where his sister, the dancer Isadora Duncan, died in 1927. He creates the Duncan Dance Academy in her memory. The newspaper "Le Monde" hailed "the work of art that was his life" when he died in 1966.