Matisse
NAME: Matisse, Henri-Emile-Benoit
ACHIEVEMENTS: One of the leading artists of the 20th century
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: December 31, 1869, Le Cateau, Picardy, France
DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: November 3, 1954, Nice, France. Aged 85
DISCIPLINE: Painter
FIELD: Art
LANGUAGE: French
PARENTS: Emile Hippolyte Henri Matisse, hardware and grain merchant; Anna
Heloise Gerard
SIBLINGS: Brother, Auguste Emile
SPOUSE: Amelie Parayre
CHILDREN: Daughter, Marguerite Emilienne, by Caroline Joblaud; 2 sons,
Jean Gerard, Pierre Louise Auguste
EDUCATION: College de Saint-Quentin; Lycee Henri Martin, Saint-Quentin;
Academie Julian, Paris; Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, Paris; Ecole des
Beaux-Arts, Paris
MAJOR WORK "Joy of Life" ; "Desert" ; "Dance"
LIFE AND TIMES:
In 1891, at 22, Matisse went to Paris, determined to become a professional artist. In 1892, he went on to the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, and also to study at the studio of Gustave Moreau, the Symbolist painter, at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
When Moreau died, <rejected teaching of> Cormon* replaced him, but unlike Moreau, Cormon expected his pupils to conform to his ideas. Matisse left.
In 1896, Matisse exhibited four of his paintings at the Salon de la Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts. This was a traditional institution, and Matisse's work was praised. His painting, "Woman Reading", was bought by the government and he was made an associate member of the Salon society.
That year he met <knew> Pissarro*, the Impressionist painter, and studied the Impressionist paintings in the Gustave Caillebotte Collection, which had just been donated to the nation. The influence of these paintings began to show in his own work. In
1897, he exhibited "The Dinner Table.”
Matisse married Amelie Parayre in 1898, and the couple traveled for a year. In London, Matisse studied <studied> Turner's* paintings. In Corsica, the strong Mediterranean sun made a strong impression on him. Back in Paris, Matisse became interested in the Pointillist technique (a process using juxtaposed dots of different color) of <influenced by> Seurat*.
After the death of Seurat, <influenced by> Signac* became the leader of the Pointillists and his article on the process in "La Revue Blanche" in 1898 impressed Matisse. As part of his research into new techniques and his growing interest in color, Matisse bought three post-Impressionist paintings from Ambroise Vollard, a prominent dealer in modern art. The paintings were: "The Three Bathers" by <bought work by> Cezanne*, "Boy's Head" by <bought work by> Gauguin*, and a drawing by <bought work by> van Gogh*.
He also bought a plaster model of <bought work by> Rodin's* bust of Henri Rochefort, and started attending evening classes in sculpture. He also stopped exhibiting at the Salon and began to frequent more avant-garde circles.
In 1901, Matisse showed at the Salon des Independants, backing the modern art movement and breaking with the traditionalist Salon. In 1902, he showed at the progressive Salon d'Automne. In June, 1904, he had his first one-man show at Vollard's gallery, but it was a failure.
In the summer of 1905, Matisse went to Collioure, a small fishing port on the Mediterranean near the Spanish border. It was here that he renounced what he called "the tyranny" of pointillism and started to use color instinctively and spontaneously. "Open Window", painted at Collioure, and a painting of his wife called " Woman with a Hat" done when he returned to Paris, reflected his new approach. Both pictures were exhibited in 1905 at the Salon d'Automne.
In the same show were works by artists who had also been using color in what seemed an abandoned way. Louis Vauxcelles, the Parisian art critic, called them "Les Fauves" (the wild beasts). Matisse became the leader of the Fauvists.
At the same time, Matisse had a stroke of luck. <supported by> Stein*, an American writer who lived in Paris, her two brothers and her sister-in-law, Sarah, were serious collectors of modern art and Sarah Stein was one of a group of admirers who set up an art school for Matisse, where he taught intermittently until 1911.
In the next years, he painted some of his most famous works, including "The Joy of Life"(1906), which shows the influence of Gauguin, "The Desert, a Harmony in Red"(1908), "The Red Studio" (1911), "Piano Lesson" (1916), and "Montalban, Large Landscape" (1918). In these works, Matisse's mature style is seen with strong flowing lines and intense patches of color.
In 1908, Matisse exhibited in New York City, Moscow and Berlin. He had continued to sculpt and had a showing of his work in New York City in 1912. In the same year, his paintings were shown in London and Cologne. The Matisse’s now were prosperous, and travelled to Algeria and Morocco.
In 1920, Matisse designed the sets and costumes for <designed sets for> Diaghilev*'s ballet, "Le Chant du Rossignol". By this time, the Matisse’s were living mainly in the South of France, but they travelled widely and in 1933 visited the United States, where Matisse finished and installed his mural "The Dance II" in Marion, Pennsylvania. As Matisse prospered, his art became less avant-garde. But he continued to
work hard.
1932 saw publication of 29 of his etchings, done to illustrate <illustrated work by> Mallarme*'s "Poesies". He did more work as a graphic artist in the 1940s, illustrating, among other works, Henri de Montherlant's "Pasiphae".In 1947 he published "Jazz," a collection of his own thoughts on art and life. The illustrations for the book were made by cutting shapes out of hand-coloured paper and pasting them together. Matisse called the technique "drawing with scissors"
In his last years, Matisse lived alone, bedridden much of the time, but painting large canvases from a bed in his studio with a crayon attached to the end of a long pole. In 1951, he completed his work on the Chapel du Rosaire in Vence, a small town in the
hills behind the Riviera.
ASSESSMENT: One of the most important French painters of the 20th century whose work has influenced modern decorative design.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: He influenced <influenced> Sickert*
He worked with <worked with> Massine*
He met the English painter Sir William <met>Rothenstein*
ONELINER: HEB Matisse, major modern French painter
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Flam, Jack, Matisse the Man and His Art, 1869-1918, Thames & Hudson, London, 1986