With his emotionally complex paintings of the European upper class, Kees van Dongen helped expand and modernize the previously conventional genre of portraiture. Van Dongen was formatively influenced by his early involvement with Henri Matisse and the Fauves, and would retain a bold sense of color throughout his career. Van Dongen later joined the German artistic group Die Brucke, working with prominent Expressionist painters Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, and Max Pechstein, amongst others, and engaging with themes including Primitivism and existential philosophy.