Skip to Main Content

Henri Matisse, Open Window, Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney

Open Window, Collioure, Matisse (Verbal Description)

Matisse’s work as a fauvist painter was one phase in a lifelong engagement with color. This small but explosive work is celebrated as one of the most important early paintings of the fauve school, a style distinguished by a startling palette of saturated, unmixed colors and broad brushstrokes. This work was painted in Collioure, a small town on the Mediterranean coast of France, to which Matisse traveled in the summer of 1905 with André Derain, a fellow fauvist painter.

09/30/16