One of the great exhibitors of expressionism, the Dutch painter, Kees Van Dongen achieved fame both as a member of the Fauvism movement and the German Expressionist group Die Brucke. He is best known for his paintings of women, nudes, dancers and society portraits. He trained in Holland at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam, and his first works were mostly Impressionist in style. In 1897 he moved to Paris, where he came under the influence of Toulouse Lautrec (1864-1901), and Art Nouveau painter and printmaker Theophile-Alexandre Steinlein (1859-1923). He was also a Bateau-Lavoir neighbor of the younger Pablo Picasso (1881-1973).

In 1905, he joined the Fauvism movement and in 1908, Die Brucke. This work is at the centerpoint of the birth of the Fauvist mouvement, as it was one of two paintings the artist exhibited during the 1905 Salon d'Automne, nicknamed the "cage aux fauves", which gave the movement its name.

Best known for his sensuous female portraits, in particular those with a restricted palette, he famously described the female body as "the most beautiful landscape". After the First World War he built up a successful career as a society portraitist of great sophistication, focusing on provocatively glamorous women whose stereotype was famous described as "half drawing-room prostitute, half side-walk princess". However, few of these later paintings achieved the impact of his pre-1918 works.