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| MATISSE, Henri |
| I
have always tried to hide my own efforts and wished my works to
have the lightness and joyousness of a springtime which never lets
anyone suspect the labours it cost. - Matisse |
 |
 |
 |
MATISSE, Henri Emile Benoit, French artist. Born in Le Gateau, near St. Quentin, Picardy, France on December 31, 1869 and died in Nice on November 3, 1954. With Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse has been the leader of 20th century Western art.
His parents had hoped he would study law, but after an illness he turned to painting. He studied in Paris at the Academic Julian and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and copied old masters in the Louvre. In 1894 and 1896, Matisse exhibited in the academic Salon Nationale, but afterward he became interested in impressionism and post impressionism. His interest in the work of Cezanne and in Japanese prints and Near Eastern art led him toward Fauvism. Meanwhile, travels in Corsica and later in North Africa inspired his pure bright palette. From 1904 to 1931 he signed his work "Henri-Matisse" to distinguish it from that of Auguste Matisse, an academic painter.
Matisse had his first one-man show in 1904 at Ambroise Vollard's, and in 1905 he exhibited the controversial Woman with the Hat at the Salon d'Automne (1905). In 1905 or 1906 Matisse and his group were called Les Fauves (wild beasts), from which was derived the term Fauvism. Among the most important early Fauvist works of Matisse are Luxe, Calme, et Volupte (1904), and Bonheur de Vivre (1905 - 1906). Matisse also made bronzes similar to those of Auguste Rodin.
In 1910, Matisse visited Moscow, where a collector, Sergei Shchukin, had commissioned
two large panels, La Danse and La Musique, now in the Soviet Union. He had a
retrospective show in Paris in 1910. He held New York exhibitions in 1908, 1910,
and 1912 at Alfred Stieglitz's Photo-Secession Gallery. He also exhibited at
the Armory Show, held in New York City in 1913, and in 1915 at the Montross
Gallery there.
From 1913 until he moved to Nice, France, in 1917, Matisse painted semiabstract
forms in subdued colors. Travels in North Africa introduced Oriental motifs
into his work, as in The Painter's Studio (1911). His Nice period is noted for
intimate and decorative paintings, such as the French Window at Nice (1919)
and White Plumes (1919). This period ended about 1926. In 1927, Matisse won
first prize at Pittsburgh's Carnegie International for Fruits and Flowers (1924).
Four years later New York's Museum of Modern Art exhibited his work.
Matisse produced prolifically. He did it all: paintings, sculptures, etchings for the poems of Stephane Mallarme, cartoons for tapestries, overmantel decorations, designs for glassware, ballet decors, and the like. His style became broad and simplified, with calligraphic emphasis; a handsome example of this period is The Ochre Head. (1937). He became seriously ill in 1940 and was nursed by Franciscan sisters in Lyon. After recovery, he worked in bed, making drawings for books and designs for tapestries. In 1949 he returned to Nice to design murals and stained glass for the Dominican Chapel of the Rosary in Vence.
Matisse was honored by retrospectives held in 1948-1949 in Paris, Philadelphia,
Lucerne, and Nice, and in 1951 at the Museum of Modern Art, and in Japan and
Germany. By the time of his death,. Matisse had lived long enough to see the
revolution in art he helped to launch become the status quo.