Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). Bathers with a Turtle, 1907-08. Oil on canvas, 179.1 x 220.3 cm (70 1/2 x 87 3/4 in.) Saint Louis Art Museum, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Pulitzer Jr., 24:1964. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). Bathers by a River, 1909-10, 1913, 1916-17. Oil on canvas, 260 x 392 cm, The Art Institute of Chicago, Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection, 1953.158. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). Flowers and Ceramic Plate, 1913. Oil on canvas, 93.5 x 82.5 cm, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, SG 1213. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). The Piano Lesson, 1916. Oil on canvas, 245.1 x 212.7 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund, 1946. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). The Window, 1916. Oil on canvas, 146.1 x 116.8 cm, The Detroit Institute of Arts, City of Detroit Purchase, 22.14. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). Shaft of Sunlight, the Woods of Trivaux, 1917. Oil on canvas, 91 x 74 cm, Private collection. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Alvin Langdon Coburn (British, 1882-1966). Henri Matisse painting Bathers by a River, May 13, 1913. Photograph. Courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, 1979:3924:0012.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). The Italian Woman, 1916. Oil on canvas, 116.7 x 89.5 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, by exchange, 1982, 82.2946. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Art Institute of Chicago
111 South Michigan Avenue
312-443-3600
Chicago
Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917
March 20-June 20, 2010

Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917 examines the period of Matisse's production from his return to Paris from Morocco in 1913 to his departure for Nice in 1917. Though this period spans only five years, it represents a major turning point in Matisse's career, the years when he developed his most demanding, experimental, and enigmatic works: paintings that are abstracted and rigorously purged of descriptive detail, geometric and sharply composed, and dominated by the colors black and gray. Previously considered to be responses to Cubism or World War I, or simply unrelated aberrations of the artist's development, works from this period are here reassessed and presented as one of the most significant chapters of Matisse's evolution as an artist.

The Art Institute of Chicago and The Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA) have co-organized the ambitious exhibition that presents, for the first time, a seminal investigation of a pivotal point in the career of Henri Matisse (1869-1954), one of the 20th century's most significant artists. Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917 premieres at the Art Institute and then travels to MoMA, where it is on view July 18-October 11, 2010. Nearly 120 of the artist's paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints from this five-year period will be presented, including the masterpieces Bathers by a River (1909-10, 1913, 1916-17) and The Moroccans (1915-16). This is the first exhibition devoted solely to the work of this important period in Matisse's career, thoroughly exploring his early working process as well as his revolutionary experimentation, or what he called his "methods of modern construction."

A highlight of the exhibition is the Art Institute's monumental painting, Bathers by a River. This painting has been the subject of extensive art-historical, archival, and scientific research that unlocks Matisse's working methods. A painting that Matisse worked on repeatedly over a period of many years, Bathers by a River provides the key to the development of the artist's revolutionary style of this time. The subject of study for four years, Art Institute curators and conservators wedded new archival information and new imaging technologies to uncover the history of this painting's evolution and its surprising connections with other works, most significantly The Museum of Modern Art's The Moroccans and The Piano Lesson (1916). MoMA has likewise engaged in an investigation of works in its collection, and, through this partnership, new information about Matisse's experimental techniques.

Building on this research, Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917 showcases a wide range of Matisse's paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints primarily from 1913 to 1917. Visitors will be able to experience the exhibition not only through such important paintings as Interior with Goldfish Bowl (1914) and Portrait of Yvonne Landsberg (1914), but also through closer looks at the artist's sculptures known as Back I, II, III, IV, and his innovative etchings, engravings, and monotypes — dramatic prints that the artist made only during the 1913-17 period. Also included in the exhibition is a special presentation of Matisse's little-known Civil Prisoners of Bohain-en-Vermandois series that demonstrates how the artist attempted to unite his art, life, and wartime concerns during these years.

Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917 explores the critical interplay of Matisse's works and presents his great achievements as the product of this concentrated period of rigorous experimentation. Supplemented by graphic didactic materials and texts as well as audiovisual presentations of the conservation research involved in the project, Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917 redefines our perception of this modern master and his art.

Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917 is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalogue published by the Art Institute and distributed by Yale University Press. It will be available early April 2010.

Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917 is curated by Stephanie D'Alessandro, Gary C. and Frances Comer Curator of Modern Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, and John Elderfield, Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Major funding for Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917 is provided by Harris Family Foundation in memory of Bette and Neison Harris. Additional funding is provided by Emily Rauh Pulitzer. This project was partially funded by a grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Bureau of Tourism. Major funding for the exhibition catalogue is generously provided by The Aaron I. Fleischman Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Dedalus Foundation.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). Apples, 1916. Oil on canvas, 116.9 x 88.9 cm, The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Florene May Schoenborn and Samuel A. Marx, 1948.563. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). Eva Mudocci, 1916. Graphite on three pieces of paper, mounted to canvas, 92.7 x 71.1 cm, Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection, 2002, 2002.456.41. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). Portrait of Yvonne Landsberg, 1914. Oil on canvas, 147.3 x 97.5 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950, 1950-134-130. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). Interior with Goldfish, 1914. Oil on canvas, 147 x 97 cm, Musée National d’Art Moderne/Centre de Création Industrielle, Centre Pompidou, Paris, bequest of Baroness Eva Gourgaud, 1965, AM 4311 P. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954). Le luxe (II), 1907. Distemper on canvas, 209.5 x 138 cm, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, KMSr76. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). The Moroccans, 1915-16. Oil on canvas, 181.3 x 279.4 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx, 1955. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). Blue Nude (Memory of Biskra), 1907. 92.1 x 140.4 cm, The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Cone Collection, BMA 1950.228. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse, Reclining Nude I (Aurora), detail, 1907; Bronze; 13-9/16 x 19-5/8 x 11", The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland,© 2007 Succession H. Matisse, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse, Male Model, ca. 1900; Oil on canvas; 39-1/8 x 28-5/8 in.; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Kay Sage Tanguy Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Funds, 1975,© 2007 Succession H. Matisse, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Henri Matisse, Study of a Nude, 1899, 65.5 x 50 cm, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo.

Henri Matisse, The Serf, 1900-3; Bronze; 36-1/8 x 14-7/8 x 13", Collection San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Bequest of Harriet Lane Levy, © 2007, Succession H. Matisse, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art
151 Third Street
(between Mission
and Howard Streets)
415-357-4000
San Francisco
Matisse:
Painter As Sculptor
June 9-September 16, 2007

Matisse: Painter as Sculptor features more than 150 works in a variety of media to illustrate the artist’s inventiveness, dexterity, and historical significance. Side-by-side presentations of two- and three-dimensional pieces showcase the way themes, imagery, and processes overlapped in Matisse’s studio practice, while a selection of works by the artist’s peers — including Constantin Brancusi, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso, and Auguste Rodin, among other modern masters — provides a vivid context for considering Matisse’s oeuvre.

Matisse: Painter as Sculptor is organized thematically around a core group of more than 40 of Matisse’s sculptural masterpieces, which are complemented by a selection of related works on paper, paintings, and original photographs of the artist in his studio. These integrated groupings illuminate the evolution of Matisse’s sculptural ideas and his complex creative process. The exhibition explores how the artist’s drawings may have developed through sculpture and how sculpture may have influenced his painting. Matisse’s bronze sculpture Reclining Nude I (Aurora) (1907) appears alongside the painting Blue Nude: Memory of Biskra (1907), a canvas that the artist was painting during a key and difficult moment in the modeling of the sculpture. The painted and sculpted representations of the reclining female nude evolved together and were inextricably linked. Other exhibition highlights include the bronze sculptures Madeleine I (1901) and Madeleine II (1903), the five portrait busts of Jeanette (1910–14), and the monumental series of four bronze reliefs known as The Backs (1909–30), Matisse’s most sustained exploration of the reduction and abstraction of the human form.

Born Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France, he grew up in Bohain-en-Vermandois. 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 painting during a period of convalescence following an attack of appendicitis, and discovered "a kind of paradise" as he later described it. In 1891 he returned to Paris to study art at the Académie Julian and became a student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Gustave Moreau. Influenced by the works of the post-Impressionists Paul Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Paul Signac, and also by Japanese art, he made colour a crucial element of his paintings from the start. Many of his paintings from 1899 to 1905 make use of a pointillist technique adopted from Signac.

His first exhibition was in 1901 and his first solo exhibition in 1904. His fondness for bright and expressive colour became more pronounced after he moved southwards in 1905 to work with André Derain and spent time on the French Riviera. The paintings of this period are characterized by flat shapes and controlled lines, with expression dominant over detail. He became known as a leader of the Fauves (wild beasts), a group of artists which also included Derain, Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy and Maurice Vlaminck. 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. Matisse had a long association with the art collector Sergei Shchukin. He made one of his major works La Danse specially for Shchukin.

He was a friend as well as rival of his younger contemporary Picasso, to whom he is often compared. A 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 lifes, with Matisse more likely to place his figures in fully realized interiors.

Matisse lived in Cimiez on the French Riviera, now a suburb of the city of Nice, from 1917 until his death in 1954. 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. After 1930 a new vigour and bolder simplification appear. In 1941 he was diagnosed with cancer and, following surgery, he started using a wheelchair. Matisse did not allow this setback to halt his work, and 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; these demonstrate the ability to bring his eye for colour and geometry to a new medium of utter simplicity, but with playful and delightful power.

The first painting of Matisse acquired by a public collection was Still Life with Geranium in 1910, today exhibited in the Pinakothek der Moderne.

Today, a Matisse painting can fetch as much as US $17 million. 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 son, Pierre Matisse, during the 1930s went on to open an important modern art gallery in New York City. Pierre Matisse represented and exhibited many European artists in New York for the first time. He exhibited Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Alberto Giacometti, Jean Dubuffet, André Derain, Yves Tanguy, Paul Delvaux, Wilfredo Lam, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Balthus, Leonora Carrington, sculptors Raymond Mason and Reg Butler, and several other important artists, including the work of Henri Matisse. His grandson, Paul Matisse, is an artist and inventor living in Massachusetts.

Henri Matisse, Blue Nude: Memory of Biskra (Nu bleu: Souvenir de Biskra), detail, 1907; Oil on canvas; 36-¼ x 55", The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland,© 2007 Succession H. Matisse, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.