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La Fée Électricité
La Fée Électricité is a work by Raoul Dufy dated 1937, held in the collection of the Musée d'art moderne de Paris. It celebrates electricity as a force that runs from ancient ideas to modern machines, told through Dufy's bright colour and quick, calligraphic line. Its long, frieze-like format invites you to read it slowly as you move along it.
Where to see it
La Fée Électricité is in the collection of the Musée d'art moderne de Paris. Display arrangements, opening hours and temporary closures can change, so check the museum's official website for current display status and visitor information before you plan your trip.
What to look for in person
A story told along a frieze
Dufy organised the subject as a continuous band rather than a single scene, so the work rewards walking along it instead of standing at one point. Look for the shift from mythological and early scientific imagery toward the machinery of the modern age, with power-generating equipment taking a prominent place. Let your eye travel through the composition as though reading a scroll, noticing how landscapes, figures and machines flow into one another without hard borders between episodes.
The people behind electricity
A defining feature of La Fée Électricité is its gathering of thinkers, scientists and inventors associated with the understanding and use of electricity. Rather than a crowd of anonymous figures, these are intended as recognisable individuals, often grouped in clusters across the composition. Take time to pick out separate faces and groupings; the work functions partly as a gallery of portraits. Museum labels or guides, where available, can help you identify specific figures as you look.
Colour that floats free of line
Look closely at how Dufy handles colour and drawing as two separate layers. Broad, luminous areas of colour are laid down, and lively dark lines are drawn over them, often not lining up exactly with the coloured zones. This deliberate looseness, typical of Dufy's mature style, gives the surface a sense of movement and light. It suits the subject well: the colour seems to glow and spread, much like the energy the work celebrates.
About the painting
Raoul Dufy, a French painter known for his radiant colour and fluent, almost handwritten line, created La Fée Électricité in 1937. The title translates as "The Electricity Fairy," and the work is an allegorical celebration of electricity, presenting it as both a scientific achievement and a kind of modern enchantment. It is closely associated with the International Exposition held in Paris in 1937, where Dufy's large decorative scheme on this theme was created for a pavilion devoted to electricity and light.
The work brings together several threads that visitors can follow. There is a mythological and historical dimension, recalling the long human effort to understand natural forces. There is a human dimension, in the many scientists and inventors who appear as identifiable figures. And there is a technological dimension, in the turbines, generators and other machinery that represent electricity put to work. Dufy unifies these elements through his characteristic method of laying colour in broad, transparent-looking fields and drawing over them with rapid, independent lines.
The collection record gives the work's dimensions as 110 cm high and 600 cm wide, a strongly horizontal format that emphasises its narrative, frieze-like reading. When visiting, allow time to move along its length rather than viewing it from a single spot, and pay attention both to the overall rhythm of colour and to the small details of faces and machines. The work is held by the Musée d'art moderne de Paris.
Key facts
| Artist | Raoul Dufy |
|---|---|
| Date | 1937 |
| Size | 110 × 600 cm |
| Medium | oil paint |
| Collection | Musée d'art moderne de Paris |
How to visit: Musée d'art moderne de Paris
Paris, France
Hours and prices can change. Please check the official website before you go.