Henri Matisse – Master of Classical Modernism

There are artists who began their work in the 19th century and yet are still said to have a noticeable influence on art today – something almost unbelievable for students encountering an art form for the first time. Among them is Henri Matisse , who born in France in 1869 and whose path to art was certainly circuitous.

He was able to circumvent his first unappealing life plan (taking over his parents' seed business) by studying law, which also took him from sleepy Bohain-en-Vermandois (near Saint-Quentin, northern France) to Paris .

Alongside his legal studies, he also attended drawing classes, and when an appendectomy left him bedridden for an extended period, he tried his hand at painting. Consequently, in 1891, he abandoned his fledgling legal career to prepare for the entrance exam at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris . He finally passed the exam in 1895, and with his friend Albert Marquet, Matisse became a student of Gustave Moreau, who, with the emerging Symbolism movement, was challenging traditional Realism.

Matisse also became acquainted with the painting style of the Impressionists, copied classics in the Louvre, exhibited his first five paintings at the Salon of the Société nationale des beaux-arts, and was introduced to the great masters of the time, such as Vincent van Gogh, . Under these influences, his painting style underwent its first, freer, and more modern development.

Matisse married in 1898, and the marriage quickly produced two sons. He also took in his four-year-old daughter, born to one of his models. He studied Turner and left the École des Beaux-Arts when Moreau died and Fernand Cormon, committed to the traditional style, became his successor.

First he briefly dabbled in the private competition, the Académie Julian, but then preferred to take courses again with a Symbolist (Eugène Carrière, friend of Auguste Rodin), painted outdoors and also attended sculpture classes .

Fascinated by its expression, he acquired a painting by Paul Cézanne, “The Three Bathers” , during this time, which would influence his thinking and work for almost four decades.

However, this unbridled desire to learn did not result in any income; his wife's millinery business alone financed all the expenses for Matisse's education, the four children, and the expensive life in Paris, which soon led the family into a severe financial crisis.

Matisse was forced to take on work as a decorative painter, which exhausted him so much that he fell into an artistic crisis. However, he also learned valuable lessons in financial matters and subsequently began seeking art collectors and exhibition opportunities: in 1902 he participated in a group exhibition, followed by his first solo exhibition in 1904 .

This did not interrupt his efforts to find his style ; he spent the summer of 1905 painting in a fishing village on the Mediterranean, and during this time, in collaboration with André Derain, he developed a style that later became famous as “Fauvism .” This name was coined by a critic who, in his assessment of their first exhibition at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1905, referred to the artists Matisse, André Derain, and Maurice de Vlaminck as “Fauves” (“wild beasts”).

At the center of this criticism was Matisse's painting "Woman with a Hat," and this art scandal significantly increased the market value of his paintings. The small Fauvist group disbanded as early as 1907, but in the meantime Matisse had exhibited other critically received works, gained Gertrude Stein and his brother Leo as staunch supporters, and forged the first bonds of his lifelong friendship with Picasso .

American friends of the Steins also supported Matisse, enabling him to establish a private painting school in Paris in 1908, where he taught around 100 domestic and foreign students in a comprehensive, non-commercial manner until 1911, including an unusually large number of women for the time.

Matisse now conquered the world through travels and exhibitions, continued to learn and processed many new impressions: in 1906 he discovered oriental ceramics and carpet art , in 1908 he met the artists of the “Brücke” in Germany, and in the same year his first exhibition took place in the USA .

In 1909 he received a large commission from the Russian patron Sergei Shchukin and was now able to buy a house, where he also built a studio on the property (in Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris).

His works were included in an exhibition in London in 1910, his sculptures were exhibited in New York in 1912, and some of his paintings were included Armory New York Matisse himself was in Seville, Tangier, and Berlin from 1910 to 1914, and finally fled the First World War to Collioure in the far south of France, near the Spanish border.

There, his inclination towards geometric simplification was further intensified through contact with the Cubist Juan Gris. On doctor's advice, Matisse, suffering from bronchitis, remained in the south; from 1917 onwards he settled in Nice, but spent every summer working in his studio in Issy-les-Moulineaux.

In 1918, his first joint exhibition with Picasso already foreshadowed some of the fame that would later be bestowed upon both painters by their leading roles in contemporary art. Matisse now also designed costumes and stage sets (in 1920 for Diaghilev's ballet "Le Chant du Rossignol"), worked again on sculptures, exhibited once more in New York in 1927, and traveled extensively, to Italy in 1925, to Tahiti in 1930, via San Francisco and New York.

On his way back from this trip, he received a huge commission in the USA that kept him busy until 1932; it is said to be related to the 22-year-old assistant Lydia Delectorskaya, who helped him with this work and also modeled for him, that his wife Amélie left the over 60-year-old after three decades of marriage.

After the divorce and subsequent illness, Matisse entered a period of diverse work, producing tapestries and book illustrations , e.g. for James Joyce's Ulysses and Stéphane Mallarmé's Poésie, exhibiting in 1930 at the Thannhauser Gallery in Berlin, and having his first major American solo exhibition in November 1931 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The following years brought further ballet decorations and costumes and further illustrations; from 1943 onwards, Matisse worked in a country villa in southern France (near Vence, northwest of Nice) on the composition of his book Jazz, published in 1947, one of the most important artists' books of the 20th century.

In 1945 he travelled to Paris for his first retrospective and exhibited alongside Picasso at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; in 1946 Picasso visited him for the first time in Vence; in 1947 Matisse began designs for the Rosary Chapel in Vence, which occupied him for years; in 1948 he returned to Nice.

In 1951, Matisse received first prize for painting at the Venice Biennale; in 1952, the Musée Henri Matisse opened in his hometown of Le Cateau-Cambrésis; in 1963, his papiers découpés were exhibited in Paris and his sculptures in London. When Matisse died of a heart attack in Nice in 1954, he was still in the midst of working on a stained-glass window for a church, commissioned by the Rockefeller family to commemorate an ancestor.

At this time, Matisse, often considered alongside Picasso to be the most important artist of classical modernism, nearing his 85th birthday. He had led a prolific life, during which he saw an incredible amount and seemingly left no stone unturned in his quest to find stylistic innovations in his work that would, in turn, influence modern art

Further information about Henri Matisse, as well as his works and exhibitions (including exhibition dates), can be found here:

Henri Matisse on artistic aspects