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Henri Matisse

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

Henri-mile-Benot Matisse

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(born Dec. 31, 1869, Le Cateau, Picardy, Fr.died Nov. 2, 1954, Nice) French painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. He was a law clerk when he became interested in art. After study with Gustave Moreau at the cole des Beaux-Arts, he exhibited four paintings at the Salon and scored a triumph when the government bought his Woman Reading (1895). Self-confident and venturesome, he experimented with pointillism but eventually abandoned it in favour of the swirls of spontaneous brushwork and riots of colour that became known as Fauvism. Though his subjects were largely domestic and figurative, his works exhibit a distinctive Mediterranean verve. He also took up sculpture and would produce some 60 pieces during his lifetime. The Armory Show exhibited 13 of his paintings. In 1917 he moved to the French Riviera, where his paintings became less daring but his output remained prodigious. After 1939 he became increasingly active as a graphic artist and in 1947 published Jazz, a book of reflections on art and life with brilliantly coloured illustrations made by drawing with scissors: the motifs were pasted together after being cut out of sheets of coloured paper. He was ill during most of his last 13 years; he designed the magnificent Chapelle du Rosaire at Vence (194851) as a gift to the Dominican nuns who cared for him. His well-known paintings include Joy of Life (1906), The Red Studio (1915), Piano Lesson (1916), and The Dance I and The Dance II (193133).

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Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:

Henri Matisse

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The French painter and sculptor Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was one of the great initiators of the modern art movement and the most outstanding personality of the first revolution in 20th-century art - Fauvism.

About the turn of the 20th century there were several artists who simultaneously and independently of each other developed a taste for strong color. This liking was derived from the work of Vincent Van Gogh, that of the divisionists (or pointillists), and Paul Gauguin's experience of primitivism in Tahiti. The combination of a primary color scheme with the primitive approach to visual experience, in which simplification and distortion enhance expressiveness, resulted in Fauvism, which initiated the modern movement.

The greatest master of modern sophistication, Henri Matisse, learned from the manner in which children draw how to see natural objects in an innocent way, as if perceiving them for the first time. Matisse was the artist who fulfilled the national tradition of French painting in the modern movement. When cubism entered the arena as a new alternative to the art of the past, what entered with it was the analytical, cerebral quality in modern art. Fauvism, on the other hand, represented in its first stage the victory of sensualism, which particularly through color transmitted its message with a strong direct impact. Fauvism developed in the oeuvre of Matisse into a classical art. A balance was achieved between color, expressing light, and form, presenting objects as pure forms in a two-dimensional manner without any illusionism.

Henri Matisse was born on Dec. 31, 1869, at Le Cateau-Cambrésis. After the war of 1870-71 his family returned to Bohain-en-Vermandois. Matisse's father was a corn merchant, his mother an amateur painter. He studied law from 1887 to 1891 and then decided to go to Paris and become a painter. He worked under Adolphe William Bouguereau at the Académie Julian in Paris, but he left in 1892 to enter the studio of Gustave Moreau at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied until 1897. Moreau was a liberal teacher who did not interfere with the individuality of his pupils, among whom were Georges Rouault, Albert Marquet, Henri Manguin, Charles Camoin, and Jean Puy. Moreau encouraged his students to look at nature and to paint outdoors, as well as to frequent the museums. Matisse copied pictures by Philippe de Champaigne, Nicolas Poussin, and Jean Baptiste Chardin in the Louvre and painted outdoors in Paris.

About 1898, under the influence of impressionism, Matisse's palette became lighter, as in his seascapes of Belle-Île and landscapes of Corsica and the Côte d'Azur. Although impressionist in character, these early works of Matisse already show a noticeable emphasis on color and simplified forms. Matisse married in 1898 and visited London in the same year to study the works of J. M. W. Turner on Camille Pissarro's advice. On his return to Paris he attended classes at the Académie Carrière, where he met André Derain. Matisse created his first sculptures in 1899.

From 1900 Matisse suffered great material hardship for years. In 1902 the artist, his wife, and their three children were forced to return to Bohain. In 1903 the Salon d'Automne was founded, and Matisse exhibited there. From 1900 to 1903, under the influence of Paul Cézanne, Matisse produced still lifes and nudes which excel in clarity and harmony. In 1904 he had his first one-man show at the gallery of Ambroise Vollard in Paris and spent the summer in Saint-Tropez, where Paul Signac lived. Signac bought Matisse's famous picture Luxe, calme et volupté (1904-1905), which was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants. In 1905 Matisse painted with Derain at Collioure; the works Matisse executed there are the very essence of Fauvism in their vivid colors and flat patterning.

Fauve Period

Matisse's Fauve period extended from 1905 to 1908, during which time he executed a magnificent series of masterpieces. Three groups of artists made up the Fauvist movement, centered on Matisse. The first group was that of the Atelier Moreau and the Académie Carrière: Marquet, Manguin, Camoin, and Puy. The second group consisted of the two artists who painted at Châtou: Maurice Vlaminck and Derain. The third was the Le Havre group: Othon Friesz, Raoul Dufy, and Georges Braque. The Dutch painter Kees van Dongen also belonged to the Fauves. At the 1905 Salon d'Automne the Fauves made their first public appearance. In 1906 Matisse's Joie de vivre was exhibited at the Indépendants; the painting, which is arranged in a series of unbroken surfaces related by color harmonies and embodies his new ideas, gained him the title of the King of the Fauves. The American collector Leo Stein began to buy his work.

Matisse made his first trip to North Africa in 1906. His Blue Nude, or Souvenir de Biskra (1907), is a memento of the journey. In this painting he experimented with contrapposto (an undulating S-curve pose), and he used the same form in the sculpture Reclining Nude I (1907). He had established a studio in the former Convent des Oiseaux in 1905; this became a meeting place for foreign artists. He developed into the leader of an international art school with mainly German and Scandinavian pupils who spread his ideas. His "Notes of a Painter," published in La Grande revue in 1908, became the artistic credo of a whole generation. Matisse was an amiable man and looked more like a shy government official than an artist. He never accepted any fees for his tuition so that he might remain free to take his leave at any time, should this commitment interfere with his creative activity.

Change in Style

Between 1908 and 1913 Matisse made journeys to Spain, Germany, Russia, and Africa. In Munich he saw the exhibition of Islamic art (1910), and in Moscow he studied Russian icons (1911). Russian collectors began to buy his pictures. He produced five sculptures - heads of Jeannette - during 1910 and 1911, which show affinities with African masks and sculptures. His Moroccan journey of 1911-12 had a decisive influence on his development, exemplified in Dance, Music, the Red Fishes, and the series of interiors recording his studio and its contents. They show a stern and compact style with blacks and grays, mauves, greens, and ochers. Great Matisse exhibitions were held in 1910, 1913, and 1919.

By 1919 Matisse had become an internationally known master. His style at that time was characterized by the use of pure colors and their sophisticated interplay (harmonies and contrasts); the two-dimensionality of the picture surface enriched by decorative patterns taken from wallpapers, Oriental carpets, and fabrics; and the musicality of outlines and arabesques, the human figures being treated in the same manner as the decorative elements. The goal of Matisse's art was the portrayal of the joy of living in contrast to the stresses of our technological age. Between 1920 and 1925 he executed a series of odalisques, such as the Odalisque with Raised Arms; this period has been called an oasis of lightness.

Last Years

In 1925 Matisse was made chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and in 1927 he received the first prize at the Carnegie International Exhibition at Pittsburgh. After a visit to Tahiti, Matisse was a guest at the Barnes Foundation at Merion, Pa., and accepted Dr. Barnes's commission to paint a mural, The Dance (1932-1933), for the hall of the foundation. A crescendo of work distinguished his life. He produced paintings, drawings, book illustrations (etchings and lithographs), sculptures (he made 54 bronzes altogether), ballet sets, and designs for tapestry and glass. He spent the war years in the south of France. In 1944 Pablo Picasso arranged for him to be represented in the Salon d'Automne to celebrate the Liberation.

Matisse considered the culmination of his lifework to be his design and decoration of the Chapel of the Rosary for the Dominican nuns at Vence (1948-1951). He designed the black-and-white tile pictures, stained glass, altar crucifix, and vestments. At the time of the consecration of the Vence chapel Matisse held a large retrospective exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The ultimate step in the art of Matisse was taken in his papiers découpés, abstract cutouts in colored paper, executed in the mid-1940s, for example, the Negro Boxer, Tristesse du roi, and Jazz. The master died on Nov. 3, 1954, in Cimiez near Nice.

Further Reading

The most comprehensive study of Matisse to date is Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Matisse, His Art and His Public (1951), which includes biography, a full bibliography, and documentation. Older studies of interest are Roger Fry, Henri Matisse (1935), and Henry McBride, Matisse (1930). Of the more recent works, University of California at Los Angeles, Art Council, Henri Matisse, with text by Jean Leymarie and others (1966), provides commentary and representative selections from all of Matisse's work. Georges Duthuit, The Fauvist Painters (1950), and Jean Leymarie, Fauvism: Biographical and Critical Study (1959), contain detailed information on Matisse and his work.

Oxford Dictionary of Dance:

Henri Matisse

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Matisse, Henri (b Le Cateau-Cambrésis, 31 Dec. 1869, d Nice, 3 Nov. 1954). French painter and stage designer. He designed two ballets for Massine: The Song of the Nightingale (1920) and Rouge et noir (1939). His interest in dance can also be seen in his monumental painting La Danse.

Oxford Companion to French Literature:

Henri Matisse

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Matisse, Henri (1869-1954). French painter. With Picasso and Braque, Matisse was one of the major innovators in European painting in the early 20th c. His work gave colour a new autonomy and power of expression, which caused uproar in the Salon d'Automne of 1905 and was labelled Fauvist, though his colour was usually characterized more by a peaceful sensuality than by violence. He brought the same sense of design to a range of media. In addition to his graphic work, he designed the scenery and costumes for the 1938 ballet of Le Rouge et le noir, and became one of the most important book illustrators of the century (notably the poetry of Mallarmé, 1932, Ronsard, 1948, and Charles d'Orléans, 1950). His work was the subject of Aragon's major analysis of artistic creation, Henri Matisse, roman (1971).

[James Kearns]

Columbia Encyclopedia:

Henri Matisse

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Matisse, Henri (äNrē' mätēs'), 1869-1954, French painter, sculptor, and lithographer. Along with Picasso, Matisse is considered one of the two foremost artists of the modern period. His contribution to 20th-century art is inestimably great.

Matisse began to study law and, during an illness in 1890, took up painting, thereafter forsaking law entirely. He studied first with the academician Bouguereau and then with Gustave Moreau, in whose studio he met many painters who would soon attain prominence with him in the fauvist movement. Matisse's earliest work was exceptionally mature. He explored impressionism (e.g., La Desserte, 1897; Niarchos Coll., Athens) and, coming into contact with the theories of Paul Signac, drew upon neoimpressionist styles as in Luxe, calme et volupté (c.1905; private coll.). To learn aspects of composition he made variations on the works of the old masters in the Louvre, a practice he continued for many years (e.g., Variation on a Still Life by de Heem, c.1915; S. A. Marx Coll., Chicago).

Matisse began exhibiting in 1896 and at first was unsuccessful. In 1905 at Collioure, a Mediterranean village, he began using pure primary color as a significant structural element. His portrait of Mme Matisse, known as The Green Line (1905; State Mus., Copenhagen), exemplifies this abstract, intellectual use of color. In 1905 he exhibited at the Salon d'automne with the group of artists called fauves [Fr.,=wild beasts], so named for their remarkable, exuberant use of color. Matisse became a leader of fauvism, delighting in vivid color for its sensual and decorative value.

After the demise of fauvism Matisse continued to use color to communicate his joy in bold pattern and striking ornament, e.g., in The Moorish Screen (1921; Phila. Mus. of Art) and Lady in Blue (1937; private coll.). He experimented frequently with different sorts of expressive abstraction, as in The Blue Nude (1907; Baltimore Mus. of Art), Mlle Landsberg (1914; Phila. Mus. of Art), and The Piano Lesson (1916; Mus. of Modern Art, New York City), but he rejected cubism in order to develop his own ideas. In 1908 Matisse wrote out his theories for La Grande Revue; he wished, if possible, to paint a visual representation of his emotional reaction to a subject rather than its realistic appearance. By 1909 the artist's fame was worldwide.

Matisse's early sculpture reveals an interest in African art and in Rodin. Matisse designed for the ballet (1920, 1938) and illustrated works by Mallarmé (1932) and Baudelaire (1944), among many others. His superbly simple line drawings rank among the greatest works of graphic art of the 20th cent. In his last years he also made brilliant paper cutouts and stencils (e.g., Jazz, 1947; Philadelphia Mus. of Art), as gay and as strong in design as his earliest work. When he was nearly 80, Matisse volunteered to decorate the Dominican nuns' chapel at Vence, France. His fresh and joyous works for the chapel include black-and-white murals, semiabstract stained-glass windows, a stone altar, a bronze cross, carved doors, and an array of colorful vestments. His work on the chapel was completed in 1951, and Matisse declared it his masterpiece.

The largest collections of Matisse's works are in the Baltimore Museum of Art; Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York City; and the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

Bibliography

See catalog from his retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City (1992); biography by H. Spurling (2 vol., 1998-2005); J. Russell, Matisse: Father and Son (1999); studies by J. Guichard-Meili (tr. 1967) and L. Aragon (2 vol., tr. 1972).

Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: Fine Arts:

Matisse, Henri

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(ma-tees, muh-tees)

A French painter and sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Matisse, known for his brilliant colors and bold brushstrokes, had a major influence on modern art.

Quotes By:

Henri Matisse

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Quotes:

"There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted."

Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Henri Matisse

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"Matisse" redirects here. For other uses, see Matisse (disambiguation).
See also: List of works by Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse

Photo of Henri Matisse by Carl Van Vechten, 1933
Birth name Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse
Born (1869-12-31)31 December 1869
Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Nord
Died 3 November 1954(1954-11-03) (aged 84)
Nice, Alpes-Maritimes
Nationality French
Field Painting, printmaking, sculpture, drawing, collage
Training Académie Julian, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Gustave Moreau
Movement Fauvism, modernism, impressionism
Works

Woman with a Hat (Madame Matisse), 1905 in museums:
Patrons Gertrude Stein, Etta Cone, Claribel Cone, Michael and Sarah Stein, Albert C. Barnes
Influenced by John Peter Russell, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Signac
Influenced Hans Hofmann, David Hockney, Tom Wesselmann

Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʁi matis]; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture.[1][2][3][4] Although he was initially labelled a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting.[5] His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.[6] While most widely recognized for his paintings, Matisse actively worked in a variety of media throughout his career.[7]

Contents

Early life and education

Woman Reading, 1894, Museum of Modern Art, Paris

Matisse was born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Nord, France, the oldest son of a prosperous grain merchant.[8] He grew up in Bohain-en-Vermandois, Picardie, France. In 1887 he went to Paris to study law, working as a court administrator in Le Cateau-Cambrésis after gaining his qualification. He first started to paint in 1889, after his mother brought him art supplies during a period of convalescence following an attack of appendicitis. He discovered "a kind of paradise" as he later described it,[9] and decided to become an artist, deeply disappointing his father.[10][11] In 1891, he returned to Paris to study art at the Académie Julian and became a student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Gustave Moreau. Initially he painted still-lifes and landscapes in a traditional style, at which he achieved reasonable proficiency. Matisse was influenced by the works of earlier masters such as Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Nicolas Poussin, and Antoine Watteau, as well as by modern artists such as Édouard Manet, and by Japanese art. Chardin was one of Matisse's most admired painters; as an art student he made copies of four Chardin paintings in the Louvre.[12]

In 1896 and 1897, Matisse visited the painter John Peter Russell on the island Belle Île off the coast of Brittany. Russell introduced him to Impressionism and to the work of van Gogh, who had been a friend of Russell but was completely unknown at the time. Matisse's style changed completely, and he would later say "Russell was my teacher, and Russell explained colour theory to me."[11] In 1896 Matisse exhibited five paintings in the salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, two of which were purchased by the state.[13]

With the model Caroline Joblau, he had a daughter, Marguerite, born in 1894. In 1898 he married Amélie Noellie Parayre; the two raised Marguerite together and had two sons, Jean (born 1899) and Pierre (born 1900). Marguerite and Amélie often served as models for Matisse.[14]

In 1898, on the advice of Camille Pissarro, he went to London to study the paintings of J. M. W. Turner and then went on a trip to Corsica.[15] Upon his return to Paris in February 1899, he worked beside Albert Marquet and met André Derain, Jean Puy,[16] and Jules Flandrin.[17] Matisse immersed himself in the work of others and went into debt from buying work from painters he admired. The work he hung and displayed in his home included a plaster bust by Rodin, a painting by Gauguin, a drawing by van Gogh, and Cézanne's Three Bathers. In Cézanne's sense of pictorial structure and colour, Matisse found his main inspiration.[16]

Many of Matisse's paintings from 1898 to 1901 make use of a Divisionist technique he adopted after reading Paul Signac's essay, "D'Eugène Delacroix au Néo-impressionisme".[15] His paintings of 1902–03, a period of material hardship for the artist, are comparatively somber and reveal a preoccupation with form. Having made his first attempt at sculpture, a copy after Antoine-Louis Barye, in 1899, he devoted much of his energy to working in clay, completing The Slave in 1903.[18]

Early paintings

Fauvism

Main article: Fauvism
Woman with a Hat, 1905. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1904–1908, and had three exhibitions.[19][20] The leaders of the movement were Matisse and André Derain.[19] Matisse's first solo exhibition was at Ambroise Vollard's gallery in 1904,[16] without much success. His fondness for bright and expressive colour became more pronounced after he spent the summer of 1904 painting in St. Tropez with the neo-Impressionists Signac and Henri Edmond Cross.[15] In that year he painted the most important of his works in the neo-Impressionist style, Luxe, Calme et Volupté.[15] In 1905 he travelled southwards again to work with André Derain at Collioure. His paintings of this period are characterized by flat shapes and controlled lines, and use pointillism in a less rigorous way than before.

In 1905, Matisse and a group of artists now known as "Fauves" exhibited together in a room at the Salon d'Automne. The paintings expressed emotion with wild, often dissonant colours, without regard for the subject's natural colours. Matisse showed Open Window and Woman with the Hat at the Salon. Critic Louis Vauxcelles described the work with the phrase "Donatello parmi les fauves!" (Donatello among the wild beasts), referring to a Renaissance-type sculpture that shared the room with them.[21] His comment was printed on 17 October 1905 in Gil Blas, a daily newspaper, and passed into popular usage.[19][21] The exhibition garnered harsh criticism—"A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public", said the critic Camille Mauclair—but also some favourable attention.[21] When the painting that was singled out for special condemnation, Matisse's Woman with a Hat, was bought by Gertrude and Leo Stein, the embattled artist's morale improved considerably.[21]

Les toits de Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

Matisse was recognized as a leader of the Fauves, along with André Derain; the two were friendly rivals, each with his own followers. Other members were Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy and Maurice de Vlaminck. The Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau (1826–1898) was the movement's inspirational teacher; as a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he pushed his students to think outside of the lines of formality and to follow their visions.

In 1907 Apollinaire, commenting about Matisse in an article published in La Falange, said, "We are not here in the presence of an extravagant or an extremist undertaking: Matisse's art is eminently reasonable."[22] But Matisse's work of the time also encountered vehement criticism, and it was difficult for him to provide for his family.[11] His controversial 1907 painting Nu bleu was burned in effigy at the Armory Show in Chicago in 1913.[23]

The decline of the Fauvist movement after 1906 did nothing to affect the rise of Matisse; many of his finest works were created between 1906 and 1917, when he was an active part of the great gathering of artistic talent in Montparnasse, even though he did not quite fit in, with his conservative appearance and strict bourgeois work habits. He continued to absorb new influences: he traveled to Algeria in 1906 studying African art and Primitivism; after viewing a large exhibition of Islamic art in Munich in 1910, he spent two months in Spain studying Moorish art. He visited Morocco in 1912 and again in 1913 and while painting in Tangiers he made several innovative changes to his work, including his use of black as a colour.[24][25][26] The effect on Matisse's art was a new boldness in the use of intense, unmodulated colour, as in L'Atelier Rouge (1911).[15]

Matisse had a long association with the Russian art collector Sergei Shchukin. He created one of his major works La Danse specially for Shchukin as part of a two painting commission, the other painting being Music, 1910. An earlier version of La Danse (1909) is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Gertrude Stein, Académie Matisse, and the Cone sisters

Henri Matisse in Paris, August 13, 1913. Photo by Carl Van Vechten
The Dessert: Harmony in Red, 1908, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Around April 1906 he met Pablo Picasso, who was 12 years younger than Matisse.[11] The two became life-long friends as well as rivals and are often compared; one key difference between them is that Matisse drew and painted from nature, while Picasso was much more inclined to work from imagination. The subjects painted most frequently by both artists were women and still life, with Matisse more likely to place his figures in fully realized interiors. Matisse and Picasso were first brought together at the Paris salon of Gertrude Stein and her companion Alice B. Toklas. During the first decade of the 20th century, Americans in Paris— Gertrude Stein, her brothers Leo Stein, Michael Stein and Michael's wife Sarah—were important collectors and supporters of Matisse's paintings. In addition Gertrude Stein's two American friends from Baltimore, the Cone sisters Clarabel and Etta, became major patrons of Matisse and Picasso, collecting hundreds of their paintings. The Cone collection is now exhibited in the Baltimore Museum of Art.[27]

While numerous artists visited the Stein salon, many of these artists were not represented among the paintings on the walls at 27 Rue de Fleurus. Where Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso's works dominated Leo and Gertrude Stein's collection, Sarah Stein's collection emphasized Matisse.[28]

Contemporaries of Leo and Gertrude Stein, Matisse and Picasso became part of their social circle and routinely joined the gatherings that took place on Saturday evenings at 27 Rue de Fleurus. Gertrude attributed the beginnings of the Saturday evening salons to Matisse, remarking:

More and more frequently, people began visiting to see the Matisse paintings—and the Cézannes: "Matisse brought people, everybody brought somebody, and they came at any time and it began to be a nuisance, and it was in this way that Saturday evenings began."[29]

Among Pablo Picasso's acquaintances who also frequented the Saturday evenings were: Fernande Olivier (Picasso's mistress), Georges Braque, André Derain, the poets Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire, Marie Laurencin (Apollinaire's mistress and an artist in her own right), and Henri Rousseau.[30]

His friends organized and financed the Académie Matisse in Paris, a private and non-commercial school in which Matisse instructed young artists. It operated from 1907 until 1911. Hans Purrmann and Sarah Stein were amongst several of his most loyal students.

Selected paintings: Paris, 1901–1917

After Paris

Odalisque with Arms Raised, 1923, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
The Back Series, bronze, left to right: The Back I, 1908–09, The Back II, 1913, The Back III 1916, The Back IV, c. 1931, all Museum of Modern Art, New York City

In 1917 Matisse relocated to Cimiez on the French Riviera, a suburb of the city of Nice. His work of the decade or so following this relocation shows a relaxation and a softening of his approach. This "return to order" is characteristic of much art of the post-World War I period, and can be compared with the neoclassicism of Picasso and Stravinsky, and the return to traditionalism of Derain. His orientalist odalisque paintings are characteristic of the period; while this work was popular, some contemporary critics found it shallow and decorative.

In the late 1920s Matisse notably once again engaged in active collaborations with other artists. He worked with not only Frenchmen, Dutch, Germans, and Spanish, but also a few Americans and recent American immigrants.

After 1930 a new vigor and bolder simplification appeared in his work. American art collector Albert C. Barnes convinced him to produce a large mural for the Barnes Foundation, The Dance II, which was completed in 1932. The Foundation owns several dozen other Matisse paintings.

He and his wife of 41 years separated in 1939. In 1941, he underwent surgery in which a colostomy was performed. Afterwards he started using a wheelchair, and until his death he was cared for by a Russian woman, Lydia Delektorskaya, formerly one of his models. With the aid of assistants he set about creating cut paper collages, often on a large scale, called gouaches découpés. His Blue Nudes series feature prime examples of this technique he called "painting with scissors"; they demonstrate the ability to bring his eye for colour and geometry to a new medium of utter simplicity, but with playful and delightful power.

Matisse, thoroughly unpolitical, was shocked when he heard that his daughter Marguerite, who had been active in the Résistance during the war, was tortured (almost to death) in a Rennes prison and sentenced to the Ravensbrück concentration camp.[10] (Marguerite avoided further imprisonment by escaping from the Ravensbrück-bound train, which was halted during an Allied air strike; she survived in the woods until rescued by fellow resisters.[31])

Matisse's student Rudolf Levy was killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944.[32][33]

In 1947 he published Jazz, a limited-edition book containing prints of colorful paper cut collages, accompanied by his written thoughts. In the 1940s he also worked as a graphic artist and produced black-and-white illustrations for several books and over one hundred original lithographs at the Mourlot Studios in Paris.

According to David Rockefeller, Matisse's final work was the design for a stained-glass window installed at the Union Church of Pocantico Hills near the Rockefeller estate north of New York City. "It was his final artistic creation; the maquette was on the wall of his bedroom when he died in November of 1954", Rockefeller writes. Installation was completed in 1956.[34]

The cutouts

Cover of Jazz (1947)
The Snail, 1953, Gouache on paper, cut and pasted, on white paper, 287 cm × 288 cm (112 3/4 × 108 inches), Tate Gallery, London

Jazz 1947, artist's book of about one hundred prints based on paper cutouts by Henri Matisse. Tériade, a noted 20th century art publisher, arranged to have Matisse's cutouts rendered as pochoir (stencil) prints.

Matisse was much admired and repeatedly referred to by the Greek Nobelist poet Odysseas Elytis. Elytis was introduced to Matisse through their common friend Tériade, during the work on the Cutouts. Matisse had painted the wall of the dining room of Tériade's residence, the Villa Natacha in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, which Elytis also mentioned in his poems.

Legacy

Tombstone of Henri Matisse and his wife Noellie, cemetery of the Monastère Notre Dame de Cimiez, Cimiez, France
The Plum Blossoms, 1948, Museum of Modern Art, New York City

In 1951 Matisse finished a four-year project of designing the interior, the glass windows and the decorations of the Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence, often referred to as the Matisse Chapel. This project was the result of the close friendship between Matisse and Sister Jacques-Marie.[35] He had hired her as a nurse and model in 1941 before she became a Dominican nun and they met again in Vence and started the collaboration, a story related in her 1992 book Henri Matisse: La Chapelle de Vence and in the 2003 documentary "A Model for Matisse".[36]

He established a museum dedicated to his work in 1952, in his birthplace city, and this museum is now the third-largest collection of Matisse works in France.

Matisse died of a heart attack at the age of 84 in 1954. He is interred in the cemetery of the Monastère Notre Dame de Cimiez, near Nice.

The first painting of Matisse acquired by a public collection was Still Life with Geraniums (1910), exhibited in the Pinakothek der Moderne.[37]

The Plum Blossoms, a 1948 painting by Henri Matisse, was purchased on 8 September 2005, for the Museum of Modern Art by Henry Kravis and the new president of the museum, Marie-Josée Drouin. Estimated price was US $25 million. Previously, it had not been seen by the public since 1970.[38] In 2002, a Matisse sculpture, Reclining Nude I (Dawn), sold for US $9.2 million, a record for a sculpture by the artist.

Matisse's daughter Marguerite often aided Matisse scholars with insights about his working methods and his works. She died in 1982 while compiling a catalog of her father's work.[39]

Matisse's son, Pierre Matisse, (1900–1989) opened an important modern art gallery in New York City during the 1930s. The Pierre Matisse Gallery which was active from 1931 until 1989 represented and exhibited many European artists and a few Americans and Canadians in New York often for the first time. He exhibited Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Alberto Giacometti, Jean Dubuffet, André Derain, Yves Tanguy, Le Corbusier, Paul Delvaux, Wifredo Lam, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Balthus, Leonora Carrington, Zao Wou Ki, Sam Francis, sculptors Theodore Roszak, Raymond Mason and Reg Butler, and several other important artists, including the work of Henri Matisse.[40][41]

Henri Matisse's grandson, Paul Matisse, is an artist and inventor living in Massachusetts. Matisse's great-granddaughter Sophie Matisse is active as an artist as of 2010. Les Heritiers Matisse functions as his official Estate. The U.S. copyright representative for Les Heritiers Matisse is the Artists Rights Society.[42]

Partial list of works

Main article: List of works by Henri Matisse




Portrayal in media and literature

Film dramatizations

  • Veteran US actor Al Pacino is to play Henri Matisse in an upcoming film called "Masterpiece," about the pioneering French artist and his relationship with his nurse and model Monique Bourgeois.[44] It will be directed by Deepa Mehta, whose previous work includes 2003's Bollywood Hollywood and Water in 2006.
  • Matisse also appears briefly, among other artists, in Midnight in Paris.

Books/Essays

  • Notes of a Painter,1908
  • Painter's Notes on Drawing,1930.
  • Jazz, 1947
  • Matisse on Art, collected by Jack D. Flam, 1973. ISBN 0-7148-1518-7

Notes

  1. ^ "Tate Modern: Matisse Picasso". Tate.org.uk. http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/matissepicasso/. Retrieved 13 February 2010. 
  2. ^ Adrian Searle (7 May 2002). "Searle, Adrian, A momentous, tremendous exhibition, The Guardian, Tuesday 7 May 2002". Guardian (UK). http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2002/may/07/artsfeatures. Retrieved 13 February 2010. 
  3. ^ "Trachtman, Paul, Matisse & Picasso, Smithsonian, February 2003". Smithsonianmag.com. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/matisse.html. Retrieved 13 February 2010. 
  4. ^ "Duchamp's urinal tops art survey". news.bbc.co.uk. 1 December 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4059997.stm. Retrieved 10 December 2010. 
  5. ^ Wattenmaker, Richard J.; Distel, Anne, et al. (1993). Great French Paintings from the Barnes Foundation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-40963-7. p. 272
  6. ^ Magdalena Dabrowski Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Source: Henri Matisse (1869–1954) | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art Retrieved 30 June 2010
  7. ^ Myers, Terry R. (July-August 2010). The Brooklyn Rail. http://brooklynrail.org/2010/07/artseen/matisse-on-the-move. 
  8. ^ Spurling, Hilary (2001). The Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse: The Early Years, 1869-1908. University of California Press, 2001. ISBN 0-520-22203-2. pp. 4–6
  9. ^ Leymarie, Jean; Read, Herbert; Lieberman, William S. (1966), Henri Matisse, UCLA Art Council, p.9.
  10. ^ a b Bärbel Küster. "Arbeiten und auf niemanden hören." Süddeutsche Zeitung, 6 July 2007. (German)
  11. ^ a b c d The Unknown Matisse, pp 352-553..., ABC Radio National, 8 June 2005
  12. ^ Spurling, Hilary. The Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse, the Early Years, 1869–1908. p.86. accessed online 15 July 2007
  13. ^ Henri and Pierre Matisse, Cosmopolis, No 2, January 1999
  14. ^ Marguerite Matisse Retrieved December 13, 2010
  15. ^ a b c d e Oxford Art Online, "Henri Matisse"
  16. ^ a b c Leymarie, Jean; Read, Herbert; Lieberman, William S. (1966), Henri Matisse, UCLA Art Council, p.10.
  17. ^ [1] on page 23 of Google Book Link
  18. ^ Leymarie, Jean; Read, Herbert; Lieberman, William S. (1966), Henri Matisse, UCLA Art Council, pp.19–20.
  19. ^ a b c John Elderfield, The "Wild Beasts" Fauvism and Its Affinities, 1976, Museum of Modern Art, p.13, ISBN 0-87070-638-1
  20. ^ Freeman, Judi, et al., The Fauve Landscape, 1990, Abbeville Press, p. 13, ISBN 1-55859-025-0.
  21. ^ a b c d Chilver, Ian (Ed.). "Fauvism", The Oxford Dictionary of Art, Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved from enotes.com, 26 December 2007.
  22. ^ Picasso and Braque pioneering cubism, William Rubin, published by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, copyright 1989, ISBN 0-87070-676-4 p.348.
  23. ^ "Matisse, Henri." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 30 July 2007.
  24. ^ The Moroccans, MoMA
  25. ^ Matisse in Morocco: The Paintings and Drawings, 1912-1913, NGA
  26. ^ Review: John Russell, Matisse and the Mark Left On Him By Morocco, NY Times
  27. ^ Cone Collection, Baltimore Museum of Art. Retrieved 29 July 2007.
  28. ^ (MoMA, 1970 at 28)
  29. ^ (Mellow, 1974, p. 84)
  30. ^ (Mellow, 1974, p. 94-95)
  31. ^ Heftrig, Ruth; Olaf Peters; Barbara Maria Schellewald [editors] (2008), Kunstgeschichte im "Dritten Reich": Theorien, Methoden, Praktiken, Akademie Verlag, p. 429; Spurling, Hilary, Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse, the Conquest of Colour, 1909–1954, p.424.
  32. ^ Gilbert, Martin (2002). The Routledge Atlas of the Holocaust. Psychology Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-415-28145-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=pYs5OSnsrHwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Routledge+atlas+of+the+Holocaust&hl=en&ei=VjZYTf2UO4Sq8AaSr9GABw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=Rudolf%20Levy&f=false. 
  33. ^ Ruhrberg, Karl (1986). Twentieth Century art: Painting and Sculpture in the Ludwig Museum. Rizzoli. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-8478-0755-0. http://books.google.com/books?ei=61RbTffWD8KC8gbAk43KDQ&ct=result&id=VqRPAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22rudolf+levy%22+aushwitz&q=%22rudolf+levy%22+#search_anchor. 
  34. ^ David Rockefeller, It is a pleasure to welcome you to the Union Church of Pocantico Hills, Union Church of Pocantico Hills website, accessed July 30, 2010
  35. ^ Sister Jacques-Marie Influence for Matisse's Rosary Chapel, Dies, NY Times, 29 September 2005 Retrieved 27 July 2010
  36. ^ French Professor Directs "Model for Matisse", Carnegie Mellon Today, 30 June 2003. Retrieved 30 July 2007.
  37. ^ Butler, Desmond. "Art/Architecture; A Home for the Modern In a Time-Bound City", The New York Times, 10 November 2002. Retrieved 25 December 2007.
  38. ^ The Modern Acquires a 'Lost' Matisse, The New York Times, 8 September 2005
  39. ^ Marguerite Duthuit, a Model In Art of Matisse, Her Father, The New York Times, 3 April 1982
  40. ^ Russell, John (1999). Matisse, Father & Son. New York: Harry N. Abrams. pp.387–389 ISBN 0-8109-4378-6
  41. ^ Metropolitan Museum exhibition of works from the Pierre Matisse Gallery, accessed online 20 June 2007, http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Matisse/collection_more.htm
  42. ^ http://arsny.com/requested.html | Most frequently requested artists list of the Artists Rights Society
  43. ^ Nan Robertson. "Modern Museum is Startled by Matisse Picture" New York Times, 5 December 1961.
  44. ^ Child, Ben (14 February 2011). [www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/feb/14/al-pacino-to-play-henri-matisse "Al Pacino to play Henri Matisse"]. The Guardian. www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/feb/14/al-pacino-to-play-henri-matisse. Retrieved 29 April 2012. 

Resources

Further reading

  • Nancy Marmer, "Matisse and the Strategy of Decoration," Artforum, March 1966, pp. 28–33.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Henri Matisse
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This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (June 2011)
Henri Matisse
Works (List)
Woman Reading (1894)  · Le Mur Rose (Landscape, the Pink Wall) (1898)  · Notre-Dame, une fin d'après-midi (A Glimpse of Notre-Dame in the Late Afternoon) (1902)  · Luxe, Calme et Volupté (Luxury, Calm and Pleasure) (1904)  · La Raie Verte (The Green Line) (1905)  · The Open Window (1905)  · Woman with a Hat (1905)  · Les toits de Collioure (1905)  · Landscape at Collioure (1905)  · Le bonheur de vivre (1906)  · The Young Sailor II (1906)  · Self-Portrait in a Striped T-shirt (1906)  · Madras Rouge (1907)  · Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra) (1907)  · The Dessert: Harmony in Red (The Red Room) (1908)  · Game of Bowls (1908)  · Bathers with a Turtle (1908)  · Dance (1910)  · Music (1910)  · Still Life with Geraniums (1910)  · L'Atelier Rouge (1911)  · The Conversation (1908–1912)  · Zorah on the Terrace (1912)  · Window at Tangier (1912)  · Le Rifain assis (1912)  · View of Notre-Dame (1914)  · Woman on a High Stool (1914) · Le rideau jaune (The Yellow Curtain) (1915)  · The Window (1916)  · The Painter and His Model (1917)  · Interior A Nice (1920)  · Odalisque with Raised Arms (1923)  · Yellow Odalisque (1926)  · The Dance II (mural) (1932)  · Robe violette et Anémones (1937)  · Woman in a Purple Coat (1937)  · La Blouse Roumaine (1940)  · Le Lanceur De Couteaux (1943)  · Annelies, White Tulips and Anemones (1944)  · L'Asie (1946)  · Deux fillettes, fond jaune et rouge (1947)  · The Plum Blossoms (1948)  · Beasts of the Sea (1950)  · The Sorrows of the King (1952)  · Black Leaf on Green Background (1952)  · La Négresse (1952)  · Blue Nude II (1952)  · The Snail (1953)  · Le Bateau (1953)
Portrait of Henri Matisse 1933 May 20.jpg
Other works
Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence (Chapel of the Rosary)  • Jazz (book)
Shows
Movement
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Family
Wikimedia
Wiktionary-logo-en.svg Matisse at Wiktionary  • Wikibooks-logo.svg Matisse at Wikibooks  • Wikiquote-logo.svg Matisse at Wikiquote  •
Wikisource-logo.svg Matisse at Wikisource  • Commons-logo.svg Matisse at Commons  • Wikinews-logo.svg Matisse at Wikinews
Leaders
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Paintings
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Influenced


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