Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) was a French painter who became the most important colourist in the history of modern art and, alongside Picasso, one of the two dominant figures of the twentieth-century European avant-garde. Born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis in northern France, he initially studied law before turning to painting after a period of convalescence. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts under Gustave Moreau—one of the most stimulating teachers in the history of French art—alongside Rouault, Marquet, and Manguin. The works in this batch date from his Post-Impressionist formation: the male model study (1900), the Notre-Dame views, the still lifes (Dishes and Fruit, The Yellow Flowers), the self-portrait (1900), the park scenes, the Saint-Tropez canvases from 1904 (including Luxe, calme et volupté, his first major Fauve work). These years—1900 to 1904—represent his laboratory period: working through Cézannism, Divisionism (he painted alongside Cross at Saint-Tropez in 1904, and the influence is visible in Luxe, calme et volupté), and searching for the colour liberation that would break open in the Fauve summer of 1905. His subsequent career produced the Dance and Music panels for Shchukin (1909–10), the Nice period interiors of the 1920s, and the cut-out masterworks of his final decade. He died in Nice in 1954.

The early Matisse works in this batch show him working through multiple influences toward the synthesis that would become Fauvism. The Notre-Dame views use a dark, Cézannesque construction of colour planes. The Saint-Tropez works—Luxe, calme et volupté and its study—show the Divisionist broken touch he absorbed from Cross, applied to a figurative composition of bathers derived from Cézanne and Puvis de Chavannes. His self-portrait (1900) is direct and unflattered. The still lifes demonstrate his developing mastery of colour relationships.

Matisse is one of the two or three most important artists in the history of modern art. His role in creating Fauvism, the first major European avant-garde movement of the twentieth century, and his subsequent career as the supreme colourist of the century—through the Moroccan paintings, the Nice interiors, and the late cut-outs—makes him a towering figure. His influence on subsequent art—from American Abstract Expressionism to contemporary painting—is fundamental.