Carol Vogel got some early Spring auction announcements today with this work starring Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Sale:

Christie’s Impressionist and modern art auction on May 8 will feature another historically significant canvas: “Madame Matisse au Kimono,” a 1905 portrait by André Derain, the Fauve painter. Better known for his sun-dappled landscapes than his portraits, he made this work during the first of two summers he spent with Henri Matisse in Collioure, a French Mediterranean fishing village near Spain where they painted side by side. That was the mythical summer right before the Salon d’Automne of 1905, when the public was outraged by these artists’ seemingly violent palettes — when colors, as Derain later said, became “like sticks of dynamite.”

A Fascination with Japan (Inside Art/New York Times)