
, 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.
At each stage I reach a balance, a conclusion. At the next sitting, if I find that there is a weakness in the whole, I make my way back into the picture by means of the weakness — I re-enter through the breach — and I reconceive the whole. Thus everything becomes fluid again.
You study, you learn, but you guard the original naiveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.
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.
A picture must possess a real power to generate light ... for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light.
Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul.
[I wouldn't mind turning into] a vermilion goldfish.
Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.
It is only after years of preparation that the young [artist] should touch color — not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression.
, 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. 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.
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
.
Early life and education

, Nord, France. He grew up in Bohain-en-Vermandois
, Picardie, France, where his parents owned a flower business; he was their first son. 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, and decided to become an artist, deeply disappointing his father. 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
.
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." In 1896 Matisse exhibited five paintings in the salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, two of which were purchased by the state.
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.
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
. Upon his return to Paris in February 1899, he worked beside Albert Marquet
and met André Derain
, Jean Puy
, and Jules Flandrin
. 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.
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". 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.
Fauvism

gallery in 1904, 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-Impressionist
s Signac and Henri Edmond Cross. In that year he painted the most important of his works in the neo-Impressionist style, Luxe, Calme et Volupté
. 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
au milieu des fauves!" (Donatello among the wild beasts), referring to a Renaissance
-type sculpture that shared the room with them. His comment was printed on 17 October 1905 in Gil Blas
, a daily newspaper, and passed into popular usage. 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. 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.

, 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." But Matisse's work of the time also encountered vehement criticism, and it was difficult for him to provide for his family. His controversial 1907 painting Nu bleu
was burned in effigy at the Armory Show
in Chicago in 1913.
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: after viewing a large exhibition of Islamic art
in Munich
in 1910, he spent two months in Spain studying Moorish art. The effect on Matisse's art was a new boldness in the use of intense, unmodulated colour, as in L'Atelier Rouge
(1911).
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

, who was 12 years younger than Matisse. 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
.
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.
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."
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
.
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.
After Paris

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
. (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.)
Matisse's student Rudolf Levy
was killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp
in 1944.
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.
The cutouts

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.
Legacy


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".
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
.
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. 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.
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.
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
.
Partial list of works
- Woman ReadingWoman ReadingWoman Reading is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1894. It hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in Paris....
(1894), Musée National d'Art ModerneMusée National d'Art ModerneThe Musée National d'Art Moderne is the national museum for modern art of France. It is located in Paris and is housed in the Centre Pompidou in the 4th arrondissement of the city. Created in 1947, it was then housed in the Palais de Tokyo and moved to its current location in 1977...
Paris - Le Mur RoseLe Mur RoseLe Mur Rose , is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1898.It was bought in Paris by Jewish entrepreneur Harry Fuld, who founded Frankfurt, Germany based H. Fuld & Co. Telefon und Telegraphenwerke AG, which made telephones...
(1898), Musée National d'Art Moderne - Notre-Dame, une fin d'après-midiNotre-Dame, une fin d'après-midiNotre-Dame, une fin d'après-midi is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1902. Its somber coloration is typical of Matisse's works executed between the end of 1901 and the end of 1903, a period of personal difficulties for the artist...
(1902), Albright-Knox Art GalleryAlbright-Knox Art GalleryThe Albright-Knox Art Gallery is an art museum located in Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York. The gallery is a major showplace for modern art and contemporary art. It is located directly across the street from Buffalo State College.-History:...
, BuffaloBuffalo, New YorkBuffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, New York - Green StripeGreen StripeThe Green Line also known as The Green Stripe or Mme Matisse, is a portrait of Henri Matisse's wife, Amélie Noellie Matisse-Parayre...
(1905) - The Open WindowThe Open WindowThe Open Window also known as Open Window, Collioure, is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1905, oil on canvas, former collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, New York, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.....
(1905) - Woman with a HatWoman with a HatWoman with a Hat is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1905.It is believed that the woman in the painting was Matisse's wife, Amelie....
(1905) - Les toits de CollioureLes toits de CollioureLes toits de Collioure is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1905. It is an example of the Pointillist style that Matisse employed during his early period of Fauvism. The painting is in the collection of The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia....
(1905) - Landscape at CollioureLandscape at CollioureLandscape at Collioure is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1905, part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.-External links:*...
(1905) - Le bonheur de vivreLe bonheur de vivreLe bonheur de vivre , is a painting by Henri Matisse. In the central background of the piece is a group of figures that is similar to the group depicted in his painting The Dance ....
(1906) - The Young Sailor IIThe Young Sailor II-Painting style:In the second version of The Young Sailor, Matisse expresses sharper edges, and brighter, flatter colors than in his earlier version of the painting. Painted in vivid pink, blue, and green, the expression of the sailor is playful and primitive...
(1906) - Self-Portrait in a Striped T-shirtSelf-Portrait in a Striped T-shirtSelf-Portrait in a Striped T-shirt is a painting by Henri Matisse from his Fauvism period, in the collection of Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark....
(1906) - Madras RougeMadras RougeMadras Rouge is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1907. The woman depicted is the painter's wife, Amélie Noellie Parayre Matisse....
(1907)
- Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra)Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra)Blue Nude is an early 1907 oil painting by Henri Matisse. It is located at the Baltimore Museum of Art as part of the Cone Collection....
(1907), Baltimore Museum of ArtBaltimore Museum of ArtThe Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works... - The Dessert: Harmony in Red (The Red Room)The Dessert: Harmony in Red (The Red Room)The Dessert: Harmony in Red is a painting by French artist Henri Matisse, from 1908. It is considered by some critics to be Matisse's masterpiece...
(1908) - Bathers with a TurtleBathers with a TurtleBathers with a Turtle is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1908, collection: The Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis.It was purchased by Joseph Pulitzer, Jr...
(1908), Saint Louis Art MuseumSaint Louis Art MuseumThe Saint Louis Art Museum is one of the principal U.S. art museums, visited by up to a half million people every year. Admission is free through a subsidy from the cultural tax district for St. Louis City and County.Located in Forest Park in St...
, MissouriMissouriMissouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It... - La DanseThe Dance (painting)The Dance are two related paintings made by Henri Matisse between 1909 and 1910. The first, preliminary version is Matisse's study for the second version...
(1909) - Still Life with GeraniumsStill Life with GeraniumsStill Life with Geraniums is a 1910 oil on canvas painting by Henri Matisse.It is in the collection of Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany, to whom it was given in 1912, thus becoming, according to the museum, the first Matisse to enter a public collection...
(1910) - L'Atelier RougeL'Atelier RougeL'Atelier Rouge, also known as The Red Studio, is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1911, in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art New York City....
(1911) - The ConversationThe Conversation (painting)The Conversation is a painting by Henri Matisse dating from 1908–1912, depicting the artist and his wife facing each other before a background of intense blue. It is in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia....
(1908–1912) - Zorah on the TerraceZorah on the TerraceZorah on the Terrace , oil on canvas, is a painting by Henri Matisse in the collection of The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia....
(1912) - Le Rifain assisLe Rifain assisLe Rifain assis 1912-1913, oil on canvas, is a painting by Henri Matisse in the collection of the Barnes Foundation, Merion, PA, USA....
(1912) - Window at Tangier (1912)
- Le rideau jauneLe rideau jauneLe rideau jaune is a painting by Henri Matisse painted in 1915. Its size is 57½ × 38⅛" .It is currently in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. It was donated to them as a gift of Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, Nelson Rockefeller Bequest, gift of Mr. and Mrs. William H. Weintraub,...
(the yellow curtain) (1915) - The Window (1916), Detroit Institute of ArtsDetroit Institute of ArtsThe Detroit Institute of Arts is a renowned art museum in the city of Detroit. In 2003, the DIA ranked as the second largest municipally owned museum in the United States, with an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars...
, MichiganMichiganMichigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
- La leçon de musique (1917)
- The Painter and His ModelThe Painter and His ModelThe Painter and His Model is a painting by Henri Matisse from the year 1917. It is currently in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Paris. In this work Matisse depicted himself in his studio on the fourth floor of 19 Quai Saint-Michel, at work on his painting Laurette in a Green Robe ....
(1917) - Interior A Nice (1920)
- Odalisque with Raised ArmsOdalisque with Raised ArmsOdalisque with Raised Arms is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1923. The full title is Odalisque assise aux bras levés, fauteuil rayé vert, which translates as "Odalisque with raised arms sitting on a green striped armchair". It is located in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C, which...
(1923), National Gallery of ArtNational Gallery of ArtThe National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
, Washington, D.C. - Yellow OdalisqueYellow OdalisqueYellow Odalisque is the title of two paintings by Henri Matisse:* From 1926, at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa* From 1937, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia...
(1926) - The Dance IIThe Dance IIThe Dance II by Henri Matisse is a triptych mural in the Barnes Foundation of Philadelphia. It was created in 1932 at the request of Albert C. Barnes after he met Matisse in the United States. Barnes was an art enthusiast and long-time collector of Matisse's works...
(1932), triptychTriptychA triptych , from tri-= "three" + ptysso= "to fold") is a work of art which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works...
muralMuralA mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
(45 ft by 15 ft) in the Barnes Foundation of PhiladelphiaBarnes Foundation of PhiladelphiaThe Barnes Foundation is an American educational art and horticultural institution in Lower Merion, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1922 by Albert C... - Robe violette et AnémonesRobe violette et AnémonesRobe violette et Anémones is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1937....
(1937) - Woman in a Purple CoatWoman in a Purple CoatWoman In A Purple Coat or The Purple Coat is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1937. It depicts Matisse's assistant Lydia Delectorskaya. This painting is an example of Henri Matisse's mature decorative style...
(1937) - Le Rêve de 1940 (the dream of 1940) (1940)
- La Blouse RoumaineLa Blouse RoumaineLa Blouse Roumaine is an oil-on-canvas painting by Henri Matisse from 1940. It measures 92 × 73 cm and is held at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris.- External links :*...
(1940) - Le Lanceur De CouteauxLe Lanceur De CouteauxLe Lanceur De Couteaux is a paper cut by Henri Matisse from 1947. It is from Jazz, 1947.Tériade, a noted 20th century art publisher, arranged to have Matisse's cutouts rendered as pochoir prints. The knife thrower was a popular print from the Jazz portfolio....
(1943) - Annelies, White Tulips and AnemonesAnnelies, White Tulips and AnemonesAnnelies, White Tulips and Anemones is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1944.The painting depicts a woman smiling at a table with flowers aligned on it. The painting is currently in the Honolulu Academy of Arts. During the early to mid-1940s Matisse was in poor health. Eventually by 1950 he stopped...
(1944), Honolulu Academy of ArtsHonolulu Academy of ArtsThe Honolulu Academy of Arts is an art museum in Honolulu in the state of Hawaii. Since its founding in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke and opening April 8, 1927, its collections have grown to over 40,000 works of art.-Description:...
- L'AsieL'AsieL'Asie is a painting by Henri Matisse. It is an oil on canvas painting from 1946.The painting is in the collection of and on public display at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas .-Provenance:...
(1946) - Deux fillettes, fond jaune et rougeDeux fillettes, fond jaune et rougeDeux fillettes, fond jaune et rouge , oil on canvas, 61 x 49.8 cm is a painting by Henri Matisse in the collection of the Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania. Alfred Barnes became one of Matisse's most important patrons...
(1947) - JazzJazz (Henri Matisse)Jazz is an 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 prints.-Original creation:...
(1947) - The Plum BlossomsThe Plum BlossomsThe Plum Blossoms is a 1948 painting by Henri Matisse. On September 8, 2005, it was purchased for the Museum of Modern Art by Henry Kravis and the new president of the museum, Marie-Josée Drouin. Previously, it had not been seen by the public since 1970. This is an example of one of the final group...
(1948) - Chapelle du Saint-Marie du RosaireChapelle du Saint-Marie du RosaireThe Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence , often referred to as the Matisse Chapel or the Vence Chapel, is a small chapel built for Dominican nuns in the town of Vence on the French Riviera. It was built and decorated between 1949 and 1951 under a plan devised by Henri Matisse...
(1948–1951) - Beasts of the SeaBeasts of the SeaBeasts of the Sea is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1950. It is a paper collage on canvas. It is currently in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC..During the early to mid-1940s Matisse was in poor health. Eventually by 1950 he stopped painting in favor of his paper cutouts...
(1950) - The Sorrows of the KingThe Sorrows of the KingThe Sorrows of the King is a collage using cut out paper shapes by Henri Matisse from 1952. It was made from paper he had coloured with gouache paint and is mounted on canvas. Its size is 292 x 386 cm. It is his final self-portrait.During the early to mid-1940s Matisse was in poor health....
(1952) - Black Leaf on Green BackgroundBlack Leaf on Green BackgroundBlack Leaf on Green Background is a painting by Henri Matisse. It was made by Matisse with Gouache and cut paper on paper. It is currently in the Menil Collection, Houston, Texas. During the early to mid-1940s Matisse was in poor health. Eventually by 1950 he stopped painting in favor of his paper...
(1952) - La NégresseLa NégresseLa Négresse 1952/1953; by Henri Matisse is a gouache découpée. During the early to mid-1940s Matisse was in poor health. Eventually by 1950 he stopped painting in favor of his paper cutouts. La Negresse, is an example of Matisse's final body of works known as the cutouts.He initially created this...
(1952) - Blue Nude II (1952)
- The SnailThe SnailThe Snail , is a collage by Henri Matisse,The work was created at the Hotel Regina in Cimiez, Nice in the summer 1952 to early 1953...
(1953) - Le BateauLe BateauLe Bateau is a paper-cut from 1953 by Henri Matisse. The picture is composed from pieces of paper cut out of sheets painted with gouache, and was created during the last years of Matisse's life.-History:...
(1954) This gouacheGouacheGouache[p], also spelled guache, the name of which derives from the Italian guazzo, water paint, splash or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. A binding agent, usually gum arabic, is also present, just as in watercolor...
created a minor stir when the MoMAMomaMoma may refer to:* Moma , an owlet moth genus* Moma Airport, a Russian public airport* Moma District, Nampula, Mozambique* Moma River, a right tributary of the Indigirka River* Google Moma, the Google corporate intranet...
mistakenly displayed it upside-down for 47 days in 1961.
Film dramatizations
- Veteran US actor Al PacinoAl PacinoAlfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
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. It will be directed by Deepa MehtaDeepa MehtaDeepa Mehta, LLD is a Genie Award-winning Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, most known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire , Earth , and Water , among which Earth was submitted by Indian government for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...
, whose previous work includes 2003's Bollywood Hollywood and Water in 2006.
Books/Essays
- Notes of a Painter,1908
- Painter's Notes on Drawing,1930.
- JazzJazz (Henri Matisse)Jazz is an 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 prints.-Original creation:...
, 1947 - Matisse on Art, collected by Jack D. Flam, 1973. ISBN 0-7148-1518-7
Resources
- Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Matisse: His Art and His Public New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1951. ISBN 0-87070-469-9; ISBN 978-0-87070-469-7.
- F. Celdran, R.R. Vidal y Plana. Triangle : Henri Matisse – Georgette Agutte – Marcel Sembat Paris, Yvelinedition, 2007. ISBN 978-2-84668-131-5.
- Raymond Escholier. Matisse. A Portrait of the Artist and the Man. London, Faber & Faber, 1960.
- Lawrence GowingLawrence GowingSir Lawrence Gowing was a British artist, writer, curator and teacher. Initially recognized as a portrait and landscape painter, he quickly rose to prominence as an art educator, writer, and eventually, curator and museum trustee...
. Matisse. New York, Oxford University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-19-520157-4. - David Lewis. "Matisse and Byzantium, or, Mechanization Takes Command" in Modernism/modernityModernism/modernityModernism/modernity is a peer-reviewed academic journal founded in 1994 by Lawrence Rainey and Robert van Hallberg. Since 2001 it has been the official publication of the Modernist Studies Association and each September issue presents papers from their annual conference.The journal is...
16:1 (January 2009), 51–59. - John RussellJohn Russell (art critic)John Russell CBE was a British American art critic.-Life and career:John Russell was born in Fleet, Hampshire, England, in 1919. He attended St Paul's School and then Magdalen College, Oxford....
. Matisse, Father & Son, published by Harry N. Abrams, NYC. Copyright John Russell 1999, ISBN 0 81094378 6 - Pierre Schneider. Matisse. New York, Rizzoli, 1984. ISBN 0-8478-0546-8.
- Hilary SpurlingHilary SpurlingHilary Spurling, CBE, FRSL is a British writer, known as a journalist and biographer. She won the Whitbread Prize for the second volume of her biography of Henri Matisse in January 2006...
. The Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse, Vol. 1, 1869–1908. London, Hamish Hamilton Ltd, 1998. ISBN 0-679-43428-3. - Hilary Spurling. Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse, Vol. 2, The Conquest of Colour 1909–1954. London, Hamish Hamilton Ltd, 2005. ISBN 0-241-13339-4.
- Alastair Wright. Matisse and the Subject of Modernism Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-691-11830-2.
Further reading
- Nancy Marmer, "Matisse and the Strategy of Decoration," Artforum, March 1966, pp. 28–33.
External links
- Artchive
- Artists Rights Society, Matisse's U.S. Copyright Representatives
- Dance (I) in the MoMA Online Collection
- Flam, Jack. Matisse in the Cone Collection, Baltimore Museum of Art, 2001 ISBN 0-912298-73-1
- Footage of Henri Matisse in Vence, France working on the New Chapel of Vence
- Henri Matisse Gallery at MuseumSyndicate
- Henri Matisse: Life and Work 500 hi-res images
- Hillary Spurling, Matisse's pajamas, online article
- Matisse and Rodin
- Matisse at Statens Museum for Kunst ("The Danish National Gallery")
- Matisse's ‘Bathers by the River’ – interactive slideshow by The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
- Matisse-Picasso
- Matisse: Radical Invention NPR, audio
- Musée Matisse Nice
- The Dance II. 1932. The Barnes Foundation, Merion Station
- The Morozov-Shchukin collection
- The nude in Matisse
- Union List of Artist Names, Getty Vocabularies. ULAN Full Record Display for Henri Matisse. Getty Vocabulary Program, Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California.
- Gelett Burgess, The Wild Men of Paris, Matisse, Picasso and Les Fauves, 1910