Henri Matisse
French, 1869 - 1954
Introduced to painting while recovering from appendicitis at age 19, Henri Matisse abandoned his job as a law clerk to compose conventional Dutch-inspired still lifes and interiors using a somber palette. After moving from northern France to Paris in 1891, his colors brightened and his style evolved under the influence of Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, and others.
In 1904, while working along the Mediterranean coast, he fully liberated his colors in bold hues that eliminated shadows and defined forms. This experimentation—dubbed fauvism (from “wild beasts”)—was a brief but crucial step in Matisse’s lifelong goal of expression through color. As he traveled throughout North Africa and Moorish Spain from 1906 to 1913, his sense of abstraction heightened, expressed in mural-sized canvases that explored color intensity in relation to human form and studio objects.
During the 1920s, Matisse reverted to more conventional modeling, cohesive space, and blended brushwork, depicting figures in exotic costumes in the textile-sheathed interior of his Nice studio. With a commission to design a mural for the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia, however, Matisse reentered the avant-garde fray.
Throughout the 1930s, his paintings became more boldly decorative as the illusion of depth was compressed into solid planes of color. This culminated in his return to the cutout technique, which he had first explored in designing costumes and scenery for the Ballets Russes in 1919. By cutting sheets of paper painted with meticulously mixed hues, Matisse “painted with scissors.” These ensembles allowed him to continue creating art despite his failing health once he reached in his early 70s. He also translated these shapes—along with a rekindled love of drawing—to book arts.
Throughout his life, Matisse published personal artist statements and dedicated at least an hour a day to writing letters to friends and family. These written and visual records illuminate a man consumed by color, fascinated by pattern, and enamored with the act of creation in wide-ranging materials and forms.
Explore Selected Works
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Prints from the Mourlot Press
Prints from the Mourlot Press
Maurice Estève, Paul Guiramand, Bernard Cathelin, Richard Florsheim, André Brasilier, Maurice Brianchon, Jean Cocteau, André Minaux, Paul Jenkins, Akira Kito, Alfred Manessier, Jean Adhémar, Various Artists, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, André Beaudin, Henri Matisse, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti · 1964 · bound volume with 19 lithographs · Accession ID 2011.60.85
Artwork

Woman with Amphora and Pomegranates
Woman with Amphora and Pomegranates
Henri Matisse · 1953 · gouache on paper, cut and pasted on white paper, mounted on canvas · Accession ID 1973.18.3
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Large Decoration with Masks
Large Decoration with Masks
Henri Matisse · 1953 · gouache on paper, cut and pasted on white paper, mounted on canvas · Accession ID 1973.17.1
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Artwork

Poèmes de Charles d'Orléans
Poèmes de Charles d'Orléans
Henri Matisse, Charles, duc d' Orléans · published 1950 · unbound volume with 54 color lithographs and 40 poems on wove paper · Accession ID 1993.47.1
Artwork

Beasts of the Sea
Beasts of the Sea
Henri Matisse · 1950 · gouache on paper, cut and pasted on white paper, mounted on canvas · Accession ID 1973.18.1
Artwork

Nadia - Face with Slanted Eyes (Nadia - Visage aux yeux obliques)
Nadia - Face with Slanted Eyes (Nadia - Visage aux yeux obliques)
Henri Matisse · 1948 · aquatint · Accession ID 1964.8.1257
Artwork

Florilege des amours de Ronsard
Florilege des amours de Ronsard
Henri Matisse, Pierre Ronsard · 1948 · unbound volume with 128 lithographs, including 2 on the cover, 1 on the frontispiece, 27 full-page lithographs and 98 within the text; all in sanguine except for 1 in black on the titlepage · Accession ID 2014.112.30