Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917

Henri Matisse. Bathers by a River 1909–10, 1913, 1916–17. Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection, 1953.158. © 2010 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Art Institute of Chicago is currently showcasing a new Henri Matisse exhibition, “Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917.” This exhibit takes a close look at one short, enigmatic phase in the artist’s career, during which Matisse’s trademark bright colors and deceptively simple approach to form were replaced with blacks and grays and an uncharacteristic density.

Some critics attribute the change to war pressures and the challenge of a younger generation of painters, particularly the cubism championed by Matisse’s younger friend and rival, Pablo Picasso. However, Stephanie D’Alessandro of the Art Institute and John Elderfield of the Museum of Modern Art in New York who curated the show feel differently. Alessandro and Elderfield believe Matisse decided to reinvent himself artistically and develop new methods of art construction.

“Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917″ contains nearly 120 of Matisse’s paintings, sculptures, etchings and drawings — many from that crucial period between 1913 and 1917, but some from before and after. The exhibition runs in Chicago through June 20, and it will be on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from July 18 through Oct. 11.

 - Information taken from F.N. D’Alessio’s article Exhibit Looks at Enigmatic Phase in Matisse’s Art

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If you can’t make it to the exhibit – or even if you can and you want more Henri Matisse artwork in your life – visit the Park West Gallery website to view a portion of the Park West Matisse collection.

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Related Links:

• Focusing on Matisse as a Printmaker
• Park West Gallery Artist Biographies: Henri Matisse
• Park West Gallery Matisse Collection

Focusing on Matisse as a Printmaker at the Tampa Museum of Art

“Young Girl Leaning on Her Elbows in front of Flowered Screen” (1923) by Henri Matisse. ©2009 Succession H. Matisse/Artists, Rights Society (ARS), New York, Courtesy American Federation of Arts.

TAMPA — An exceptional show featuring Fauvist master Henri Matisse is currently on view at the newly-opened Tampa Museum of Art. While many past exhibits focus on the bright, cheerful paintings of Matisse, this display is centered around the artist’s 50-year journey as a printmaker.

(Note: Numerous examples of Matisse prints are represented in the Park West Gallery Collection, some of which can be seen online.) 

“This is a rare show indeed for what it suggests about the interconnectedness among Matisse’s work in printmaking, painting and sculpture,” said Todd Smith, the museum’s executive director.

Matisse created over 800 prints in his lifetime and his style certainly influenced the next generation of popular Park West Gallery artists – Marcel Mouly, Jean-Claude Picot and Emile Bellet – just to name a few.

From the Tampa Museum of Art website:

A Celebration of Henri Matisse: Master of Line and Light
On view through April 18, 2010 – This comprehensive exhibition on the career of the great French artist Henri Matisse (1869–1954) showcases over 170 works of art spanning 50 years of Matisse’s career, with particular emphasis placed on the role that printmaking played in the development of the artist’s career. The exhibition offers compelling evidence of the important role printmaking played in the evolution of Matisse’s visual ideas. The exhibition loosely follows the chronology of Matisse’s career, from the artist’s earliest print in 1900 to the last in 1951. Examples of every printmaking technique used by Matisse — etchings, monotypes, lithographs, linocuts, aquatints, drypoints, woodcuts and color prints — are included. Almost all of the prints involve serial imagery, with the artist showing the development of a reclining or seated pose, the integration of models within interiors, the study of facial expressions, and the transformation of a subject from a straight representation to something more abstract or developed.

For more on this exhibit, please visit www.tampamuseum.org

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Related Links:

• Park West Gallery Artist Biographies: Henri Matisse
• Henri Matisse: A Celebration of French Poets & Poetry
• The Pompidou Mobile: Picassos, Matisses and Calders – Oh My!
• Matisse and Roding Tete-a-Tete in Paris
• Artist Birthdays December 31 – HENRI MATISSE

Henri Matisse: A Celebration of French Poets & Poetry

ATLANTA, GA — “I don’t distinguish between the making of a book and a painting,” Henri Matisse once said. A new exhibit in Atlanta showcases works from two of the many illustrated books known as “livre d’artistes” (artist’s books), produced by the artist during his lifetime.

Oglethorpe University Museum of Art (OUMA) presents the first-ever North American exhibition tour of the Albert Skira Collection of Henri Matisse’s lithographs for his 1948 series Florilége des Amours de Ronsard, and his 1930-32 series of etchings of Stéphane Mallarmé’s Poésies. Florilège des Amours illustrates the love poems of 16th century French Renaissance poet Pierre de Ronsard; while Poésies illustrates selected mythologically inspired poems of 19th century French poet Stéphane Mallarmé.

On view through May 9, 2010, Henri Matisse: A Celebration of French Poets & Poetry focuses on Matisse’s love and devotion to books and poetry celebrating the works of two of France’s most revered poets from the Renaissance period to modern times. The exhibit includes 47 lithographs and 16 etchings.

For more information on this exhibit, please visit museum.oglethorpe.edu or visit Park West Gallery  at sales.parkwestgallery.com to view selections from our Matisse Collection online.

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Related Links:

• Park West Gallery Artist Biographies: Henri Matisse
• The Pompidou Mobile: Picassos, Matisses and Calders – Oh My!
• Matisse and Roding Tete-a-Tete in Paris
• Artist Birthdays December 31 – HENRI MATISSE

Artist Birthdays December 31 – HENRI MATISSE

HENRI MATISSE (December 31, 1869 – November 3, 1954)

• Nationality: French
• Field: Painting, sculpture, printmaking
• Art Movement: Fauvism
• ARTiFact: In 1888 he passed the bar exam and began to practice law. The following year, an attack of appendicitis caused his mother to bring him art supplies to keep him occupied; he began to paint for the first time.
• Artist Quote: “From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life. I threw myself into it like a beast that plunges towards the thing it loves.”
• Notable Artwork (shown below): The Joy of Life, 1905-06.

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Related Links:

• Learn More About the Artist Henri Matisse
• Selections from the Park West Gallery – Henri Matisse Collection
• Park West Gallery Artist Biographies
• More Artist Birthdays and Art Trivia
• Take the Park West Gallery Virtual Tour

The Pompidou Mobile: Picassos, Matisses and Calders – Oh My!

Founded in 1969, Park West Gallery strives to connect people with fine art and the artists who create it through our galleries in Michigan and Florida as well as on cruise ships internationally. Paris’ renowned Pompidou Center is embarking on a new venture with a similar mission, “…bringing art to the people to awaken their desire…”
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Art Under the Big Top: The Roving Pompidou
By JENNY BARCHFIELD • AP | November 5, 2009

PARIS — Forget the lions, tigers and bears. Paris’ Pompidou Center plans to fill a colorful circus big top with Picassos, Matisses and Calders instead, creating a roving museum to take its masterpieces of modern art to France’s culturally deprived rural regions and rough suburbs.

The so-called “Pompidou Mobile” aims to be just as avant-garde in its design as the original Pompidou Center — the audacious, tube-covered structure that houses the city’s premier contemporary art museum and caused a furor when it opened in 1977.

Only part of the necessary funding has been raised and no itinerary has yet been drawn up. Visiting the roving Pompidou will be free, and the project’s priorities are rural regions and the poor, crime-ridden suburbs that ring France’s cities but are often largely cut off from the cultural offerings there.

“It’s about bringing art to the people to awaken their desire to go toward the art,” the Pompidou’s president, Alain Seban, said in a statement. “It’s a sign of our openness.”

Architect Patrick Bouchain, whose firm specializes in circus tents and other collapsible structures, showed sketches of his design for the new Pompidou structure at a presentation Thursday: several triangle-shaped modules that can be fitted together to create different structures fitted to the different environments in which the museum will pitch its tent.

“It has to be adaptable anywhere, from a parking lot at a suburban shopping center to maybe a country lot or field,” Bouchain said.

Inside the high-tech canvas structure, solid glass and plastic encasements will protect the artwork from vandalism and theft and keep the temperature and humidity constant, Bouchain said.

The total cost of the 1,000-sq. meter (10,700-sq. foot) structure is estimated at euro3 million ($4.43 million) — of which euro500,000 has been pledged so far, Seban said. He’s looking for sponsors to fund the balance.

Provided they get the money, the mobile museum will hit the road starting at the end of next year, Seban said. The 10-15 works from the Pompidou’s extensive permanent collection that are likely to go on display include Pablo Picasso’s Femme en Bleu (Women in Blue), a 1944 post-Cubist painting in shades of indigo, and a primary-colored mobile by American artist Alexander Calder.

Henri Matisse’s 1941 painting Nature morte au magnolia (Magnolia Still Life) — among the French artist’s personal favorites — could rub proverbial shoulders with America, America, a 1964 neon sculpture of fingers snapping, by Martial Raysse.

The artwork on display will change as the museum moves across the country, with exhibits loosely focused around broad themes like primary colors and black and white, the human body, and the energy of the city, said curator Emma Lavigne.

Three three-month-long stints will be organized per year, with regional governments footing the bill for the museum’s operating costs, Seban said.

[Source: AP]

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Related Links:

• Secret Images. Picasso and Japanese Erotic Prints
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Pablo Picasso  
• Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris
• Matisse and Rodin Tete-a-Tete in Paris
• Learn About the Park West Foundation and How You Can Help

Matisse as Printmaker at the Baltimore Museum of Art

Henri Matisse is an artist of classical greatness and one of the strongest influences on the art of the 20th century. The Park West Gallery Collection is one of the world’s finest, showcasing fine art by masters including Henri Matisse. Browse the Park West Gallery – Matisse Collection >>
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BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – The Baltimore Museum of Art presents the first comprehensive exhibition on the printmaking of the great French artist Henri Matisse. Matisse as Printmaker features approximately 170 works of art spanning 50 years of Matisse’s career. More than 150 prints, as well as a selection of related paintings, sculpture, drawings, and books are included, providing compelling evidence of the important role printmaking played in the evolution of Matisse’s visual ideas.

Matisse as Printmaker loosely follows the chronology of Matisse’s career, from the artist’s earliest print in 1900 to the last in 1951. Examples of every printmaking technique used by Matisse — etchings, monotypes, lithographs, linocuts, aquatints, drypoints, woodcuts, and color prints — are included. Almost all of the prints involve serial imagery with the artist showing the development of a reclining or seated pose, the integration of models within interiors, the study of facial expressions, and the transformation of a subject from a straight representation to something more abstract or developed.

Illustrated books such as Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé (c. 1932), Pasiphaé (1944), and Jazz (1947) demonstrate Matisse’s brilliant innovations in the presentation of serial imagery. The artist’s brief experimentation with color printmaking is represented with three impressions of the color aquatint Marie-José en robe jaune (1950) and a print titled La Dance (1935), which captures the composition of his first version of the mural intended for Albert Barnes. Though most of the exhibitions and research to date have focused on Matisse’s painting and sculpture, the rich variety of media and subject matter in Matisse as Printmaker significantly advance the scholarship and public awareness of this understudied aspect of Matisse’s oeuvre. These works are rarely on view to the public due to their sensitivity to light.

Matisse as Printmaker is now on view through Jan. 3, 2010

For more information, please visit www.artbma.org

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Related Links:

• Park West Gallery Artist Biographies: Henri Matisse
• Browse the Park West Gallery – Matisse Collection
• Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris
• Matisse and Roding Tete-a-Tete in Paris

Matisse and Rodin Tete-a-Tete in Paris

Henri Matisse is an artist of classical greatness and one of the strongest influences on the art of the 20th century. The Park West Gallery Collection is one of the world’s finest, showcasing fine art by masters including Henri Matisse. Browse the Park West Gallery – Matisse Collection >>
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PARIS — The Rodin Museum is staging a face-to-face encounter between two outstanding creative artists who were only a generation apart, Henri Matisse and Auguste Rodin. Rodin was the dominant figure in the sculpture of the period while Matisse, Rodin’s contemporary for the first seventeen years of the 20th century, introduced revolutionary changes in its painting. The story of the encounters and relations between these two major artists is one that has remained unexplored until now.

When the two artists met for the first time, in 1899, Matisse was thirty years old and Rodin sixty. Matisse & Rodin will put forward some fresh thinking on what Matisse, the master of Fauvism, made of Rodin, on what his works can tell us about the affinities, correspondences or differences between the two artists.

On show to the public will be a wide-ranging selection of Matisse’s sculpture, an aspect of his work to which no specific exhibition has been devoted since 1975. By selecting certain specific works and using a thematic approach, Matisse & Rodin sets out to show both points of convergence and divergence in the sculptural and graphic work of the two masters. It aims to explore Matisse’s sculpture and drawings and, from the perspective of Matisse’s art, to see Rodin in a new light.

Matisse & Rodin is now on view through February 28, 2010.

For more information, please visit www.musee-rodin.fr/expomatissee.html
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Related Links:

• Park West Gallery Artist Biographies: Henri Matisse
• Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Pablo Picasso
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Rembrandt van Rijn
• Park West Gallery Master Sites: Salvador Dali

Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris

For over 40 years, Park West Gallery has been a reliable resource for the artworks of Modern Masters, including Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse. Park West recently launched a microsite dedicated to Pablo Picasso and his artwork -  visit picasso.parkwestgallery.com to learn more.

WINCHESTER, VIRGINIA — Works by the leading masters of modern art are on display at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (MSV) in the exhibition, Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris. The show is part of a statewide tour that marks the first time since the late 1940s that selections from the collection of T. Catesby Jones (1880–1946) — a prominent collector from Virginia — will be reunited. More than 50 works gifted by T. Catesby Jones to the collections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the University of Virginia Art Museum will be included.

Among the works displayed will be Pablo Picasso’s Woman with Kerchief (1906), Henri Matisse’s portrait of Lorette (1917), and a Cubist collage by Juan Gris. Other artists represented in the exhibition include Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Raoul Dufy, Jacques Lipchitz, André Masson, and Georges Rouault.

The display encompasses many of the key artists, innovative styles, and central themes that emerged and developed during a crucial period in the history of modern art. The exhibition tells the story of new modernist movements before and during World War I, cubism, surrealism, and the transformative World War II period when many of the best-known French modernists fled Paris for New York.

Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris is currently on view until November 29, 2009

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Related Links:

• More information about Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris
• Visit the Park West Gallery Pablo Picasso website
• Picasso’s Chateau Opens to the Public for the First Time
• BBC1 Announces Modern Masters Arts Series