| Brief biography
Web Links Lesson
Plans
b. 1869, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France; d. 1954, Nice
Henri-Emile-Benoît Matisse was born on December 31, 1869, in Le Cateau–Cambrésis, France. He grew up at Bohain-en-Vermandois and studied law in Paris from 1887 to 1888. By 1891, he had abandoned law and started to paint. In Paris, Matisse studied art briefly at the Académie Julian and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts with Gustave Moreau.
In 1901, Matisse exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris and met another future leader of the Fauve movement, Maurice de
Vlaminck. His first solo show took place at the Galerie Vollard in 1904. Both Leo and Gertrude Stein, as well as Etta and Claribel Cone, began to collect Matisse’s work at that time. Like many avant-garde artists in Paris, Matisse was receptive to a broad range of influences. He was one of the first painters to take an interest in “primitive” art. Matisse abandoned the palette of the Impressionists and established his characteristic style, with its flat, brilliant color and fluid line. His subjects were primarily women, interiors, and still
lifes. In 1913, his work was included in the Armory Show in New York. By 1923, two Russians, Sergei Shchukin and Ivan
Morosov, had purchased nearly 50 of his paintings.
From the early 1920s until 1939, Matisse divided his time primarily between the South of France and Paris. During this period, he worked on paintings, sculptures, lithographs, and etchings, as well as on murals for the Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania, designs for tapestries, and set and costume designs for Léonide Massine’s ballet Rouge et noir.
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Photograph
of Henri Matisse
From
Carol Gerten Fine Art
Photograph of Henri Matisse working in bed
(photo credit not given on site -source is no
longer online)
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| While recuperating from two major operations in 1941 and 1942, Matisse concentrated on a technique he had devised earlier: papiers découpés (paper cutouts). Jazz, written and illustrated by
Matisse, was published in 1947; the plates are stencil reproductions of paper cutouts. In 1948, he began the design for the decoration of Chapelle du Rosaire at
Vence, which was completed and consecrated in 1951. The same year, a major retrospective of his work was presented at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and then traveled to Cleveland, Chicago, and San Francisco. In 1952, the Musée Matisse was inaugurated at the artist’s birthplace of Le
Cateau–Cambrésis. Matisse continued to make large paper cutouts, the last of which was a design for the rose window at Union Church of Pocantico Hills, New York. He died on November 3, 1954, in Nice.
(This
biography is copied from Guggenheim)
Timeline
from Matisse
and Picasso -
check out the materials for teachers
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| Links on the Web:
Matisse
for Kids - Baltimore Museum of Art. Excellent site for students to
explore.
Henri
Matisse Online - Artcylcopedia
Henri
Matisse - Web Museum - brief overview of work of Matisse
Henri
Matisse and the Fauves Selected images - from the National Gallery
of Art.
Musee
Matisse de Nice English site is not finished - click on English - then
view paintings, sculptures and more in French - click on les oeuvres.
Matisse/Picasso
commercial gallery site with biographies of Matisse and Picasso and
selected works.
Henri
Matisse - Carol Gerten Fine Arts - 2 pages of images and brief
biography - preview before using with students. (Use Mozilla browser
to block pop-up ads - some objectionable banners ads - Mozilla will block
source)
Henri
Matisse - Olga's Gallery - Good source for teachers to find images
(158 total - preview before using with students). Site has pop-up ads and
pop-under ads. Use Mozilla to block.
Henri
Matisse - Mark Hardin's Artchive - biography and links to images
online. Several images with music theme. Has pop-under ads now in Internet
Explorer.
Matisse
& Picasso Companion site for documentary portrait video. Site has
biographies, timelines and selected images.
Lesson
Plans
Color
and Light - National Gallery of Art
Matisse
& Picasso
This is the online version of a teacher resource guide developed for
the Dallas PBS station in support of their video about Picasso and Matisse
which in turn accompanied the traveling exhibition.
The video is shown on PBS on occasion or available through the KERA website
for purchase.
Background
image from Musee Matisse Nice
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