Henri Matisse

1869 - 1954

French (Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France - Nice, France)

Henri Matisse was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Although he was initially labeled a Fauve (“wild beast”), a European movement emphasizing non-representational painterly techniques, by the 1920s, he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. In late 1917 Matisse moved to Nice, in the south of France, where he lived
on and off for the rest of his life. There, in a spacious seaside studio, he painted his languorous models, often in the guise of the exotic odalisques of earlier artists like Ingres. Throughout Europe there was a great fascination with all things considered exotic—from Africa to Asia. Notice in the images exhibited that even within the limitations of a black and white palette, Matisse developed a sense of both form and volume. Through collections of African art Picasso became enamored with the formal qualities of African masks and figural sculptures. African aesthetics have been linked, sometimes in highly controversial exhibitions, to a range of modern artists, including Picasso and Matisse. Both artists, Picasso and Matisse, met in France through the American collectors Gertrude and Leo Stein. Their relationship was both competitive and nurturing; the older Matisse heavily influenced Picasso. Matisse is regarded, along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three seminal artists of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. His mastery of the expressive language of color and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.