Andre Derain (1880-1954)

Derain was born in Chatou, France. Derain started painting at an early age, he befriended   Maurice Vlaminck,  Henri Matisse and  met Picasso in 1906. Soon afterward he signed a contract with Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, Picasso's dealer.

Derain was at one moment a pointillist (painting with dots)  at other moments, he was under the spell of Van Gogh or Cezanne. He spent hours copying in the Louvre. He became pretty successful, but when he accepted an invitation to lecture in Germany during the Nazi occupation of France, his personal stature plummeted along with his stature as an artist. What the public did not realize was that Derain had been persuaded to go by the Nazis' promise that some French prisoners of war would be released. During the 1930s he gradually lost touch with many of his old friends. He lived in an 18th-century mansion outside of Paris, and spent two or three hours a day drawing in the park surrounding the house. His wife left him and when he made headlines in 1954 after being hit by a car many art lovers thought he was already dead. Two months later he was - one of the loneliest figures in the entire turbulent history of modern art.

Source:AskArt