Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse , born the December 31st 1869 with the Cateau-Cambrésis and dead the November 3rd 1954 with Nice, is a painter, draftsman and sculptor French.

He was the leader of the Fauvisme; Pablo Picasso regarded it as its large rival and nevertheless friendly.

Biography

Henri Matisse, after a beginning of career as clerk, discovers the happiness which the practice of painting during a convalescence got to him during which his/her mother offered a box of paints to him (it was then twenty years old). As of its re-establishment, it is registered during drawing of the school Maurice-Quentin of the Tower (intended for the draftsmen in textile whose local industry is rich and who will strongly mark it: it will collect the fabrics at the time of its voyages, will use the reasons for impression on fabric (arabesques and sheets) and will create works on fabric like the chasubles of the vault of Vence). It reinstates the study of Duconseil Master. Starting from 1890, following a secondary convalescence with an operation of the Appendicitis, Matisse gives up the right to be devoted to its artistic calling and, in 1891, it settles with Paris, where - after having been allowed at the school of the Art schools in 1895 - it attends the workshop of Gustave Moreau. It meets there Georges Rouault, Albert Marquet and at the time of visiting the exposures of Corot and Cézanne.

In 1896 Matisse exposes for the first time to the Salon of the Hundred and the Living room of the National company of the Art schools of which he becomes associated member on proposal of Puvis de Chavannes. This function in particular enables him to expose, without passing through a jury. It spends the summer to Belle-Île-en-Mer and meets Australian the John Russel which introduces it near Rodin and Camille Pissarro. It starts to be interested in the impressionist painting which it discovers in 1897 with the museum of Luxembourg.

In 1894 is born his/her Marguerite daughter (of a model named Caroline Joblau). In 1898 it marries Amélie Pareyre of which it will have two children, Jean in 1899 and Pierre in 1900. It spends one week to London, where, on the councils of Pissarro, it discovers the painting of Turner then goes to Ajaccio and Toulouse where it tries out the method of this last. As from 1900 Matisse works with the Académie of the Large Thatched cottage, under the direction of Antoine Bourdelle, and also attends the workshop of Eugene Carrière, where it becomes acquainted with André Derain and Jean Puy. Derain presents Maurice to him de Vlaminck. It exposes to the Salon of Independent the (1901) and takes part in the first edition of the Salon of autumn (1903). It exposes in 1904 at Ambroise Vollard.

It presents at the beginning of 1905 an important particular exposure in Bernheim-Young person and takes part in the Living room of the Independent ones. With the Living room of autumn of 1905, Matisse - with Albert Marquet, of Vlaminck, Derain and Van Dongen - causes a scandal with fabrics with the pure and violent colors, posed in flat tint. The critic Louis Vauxcelles calls them the “fawn-coloured ”, term at once adopted, like a challenge, by the group. This period also marks the recognition of its work, allowing him a relative material ease finally. Matisse becomes indeed the leader of the fauvism.

He travels thereafter in many places where he draws his inspiration: Algeria in 1906, then Italy, Germany, Morocco and Russia. He visits on several occasions the the USA but also PAPEETE, which will mark its later work.

In 1908, Matisse opens a free academy - with the convent of the Birds, then with the hotel of Biron - where has a presentiment of the foreign students. The academy will be closed in 1911.

Between 1908 and 1912 Matisse exposes its works to Moscow, Berlin, Munich and London. In 1913 of works of Matisse are exposed to Armory Show with New York, and to the Secession of Berlin.

After the beginning of the First World War, it leaves Collioure where it had passed from many stays since 1905 when the first fawn-coloured tables were carried out.

After having passed part of the winter 1916 - 1917 with Nice, Matisse decides to remain at greater length on the Riviera, which he regards as a paradise of which he seeks the transcription in his fabrics. In the majority of the religions, the paradise is a garden: from where the presence attends plants in its works or the transformation of the bodies into plants (the tree, the vine stock, the flower…). Igor Stravinski and Serge Diaghilev requires of him to draw costumes and decorations for the representation of the choreographic spectacle the song of the nightingale with the Russian Ballets in London in 1919.

In 1925, Matisse is named knight of the Légion of honor. With New York one organizes in 1927 a retrospective Matisse (1890 - 1926) with the Valentine gallery. After a stay in the USA, it returns to Paris for the installation of the Dance to Merion, for the Fondation Barnes in 1933 (bought secondary by the Musée of modern art of the Town of Paris). He works with the illustration of Ulysses of James Joyce, with the decorations and the costumes of Rouge and Black for the Russian Ballet of Monte Carlo (1934 - 1938).

In 1941, reached of a cancer, he is hospitalized with the private clinic of the Park of Lyon. Its doctors give him six months with living. He cannot travel any more and will use the brought back fabrics of his voyages to equip his models originating in the whole world (Swiss, Turkey, Hungary, the Antilles…) and to continue, of its wheel chair, its search of a painting without border. Its nurse, Monique Middle-class man, becomes her model. Matisse uses the technique of the cut out gouaches and begins the series Jazz . It leaves to Vence, at the time of the evacuation of Nice. It joins again a friendship dating from the Moreau workshop in the Art schools of Paris with André Rouveyre, draftsman and writer, with whom it exchanges a rich person correspondence (more than 1200 letters which was published secondarily)

After the release, one organizes in 1945 a great Matisse retrospective with the Living room of Fall. It builds the paperboards of Tapisserie Polynésie, the Sky and Polynésie, the Sea (1946) and starts to work starting from 1949 with the decoration of the Chapelle of the Rosary of Vence, which will be devoted in 1951. In 1952 took place the inauguration of the Musée Matisse of Cateau-Cambrésis, its birthplace. It carries out the cut out gouache the Sadness of the king who, for Pierre Schneider, is however “a table nearer even to traditional painting that Matisse it forever be…, his last self-portrait…, the portrait of an old man”.

Matisse dies on November 3rd 1954, with Nice where it is buried with the cemetery of Cimiez. His/her son, Pierre Matisse, was a famous merchant of art installed in Fuller Building of New York.

Quotations

To draw, it is to specify an idea. The drawing is the precision of the thought. By the drawing the feelings and the heart of the painter pass without difficulty in the spirit of the spectator. A work without drawing is a house without frame.
When I put green, that does not want to say grass; when I put blue, that does not want to say the sky.

Some works

Still life with the jug Henri Matisse in Artcyclopedia, about 1896-1897, Museum Malraux, Le Havre the pink wall of the hospital of Calvi (1897) Center Pompidou MNR Paris
Luxury, calm and pleasure , 1904, Museum of Orsay, Paris
the Woman with the hat , 1905, Museum off Modern Art, San Francisco
Happiness to live , 1905-1906, Barnes Foundation, Merion
Portrait of Mrs Matisse , told to the green Line , 1905
the red service road , 1908
the Dance and the Music , for the Muscovite collector Sergueï Chtchoukine, 1909-1910, Museum of the Hermitage, Still life Saint-Pétersbourg
with the géranium , 1910 Modern Pinakothek DER, Munich
Interior with the eggplants , 1911, Museum of Grenoble
the door of the kasbah , 1912, museum Pouchkine, Moscow, 116*90cm
French window in Collioure , 1914, National museum of Modern art, Paris
the Window , 1916, Institute off Arts, Strait
Portrait of Auguste Pellerin , 1917, National museum of Modern art, Paris
Landscape or Street in the South , 1919, Museum of the Art schools Andre Malraux, Le Havre
Woman sitting, the back turned towards the open window about 1922, Oil on fabric, Museum of the Art schools of Montreal, Montreal
decorative Figure on decorative bottom , 1925, National museum of Modern art, Paris
Tahiti II , 1935-1936, Museum Matisse - Cateau-Cambrésis
Two young girls, yellow dress, Scottish dress , 1941, Matisse Museum - Cateau-Cambrésis
Asia , 1946, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth
Naked Blue I , 1952, Beyeler Foundation, Basle
Vine, 1953, Matisse Museum - Cateau-Cambrésis
gray Odalisque and yellow sold 14,7M$ in 2007
Dancer in the armchair, ground in checkerwork put at the bidding in June 2007.
the vault of the Rosary with Vence, which is an architectural work that he regarded as his masterpiece, carried out on the end of his life and synthesizing all his artistic research.

Work also includes/understands important series of sculptures drawn out of bronze ( busts from Sleeve-board , 1910-1913; four Naked of back , low reliefs, 1909-1930), nearly 500 engraved parts (etchings, wood, Lithography S), of the illustrations of books: Poetries of Mallarmé (1932), Letters of the Portuguese nun (1946), Anthology of the Loves of Ronsard (1948).

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