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Henri
Matisse was born at Le Cateau-Cambrésis in the North of France on
December 31, 1869. His parents, Emile Matisse and Héloise Gérars,
had a general store selling household goods and seed. Henri planned on
a legal career, and in 1887/88 studied law in Paris, in 1889 he was employed
as a clerk in a solicitor’s office. It was in 1890 that he was first attracted
to painting. Confined to his bed for nearly a year (1890) after an intestinal
operation, he chose drawing as a pastime. Then the hobby took best of him
and he decided for the painting career.
The long years of learning followed: in 1891 Matisse studied under Bouguereau
at the Académie Julian, and in 1892 transferred unofficially to
Gustave Moreau’s studio at the Ecole Beaux-Arts, where he met Marquet,
at the same time attending the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs.
In 1894 his daughter Marguerite was born, though Matisse did not marry
the mother, Amélie Paraere, till 1898.
In 1896 he made a successful début at the Salon de la Société
Nationale des Beaux-Arts and a year later displayed there his large canvas
La
Desserte, which showed the influence of the Impressionists. After
Moreau’s death in 1898, he studied briefly with Cormon, then left the Ecole
des Beaux-Arts and entered the Académie Carrière where he
met Derain and Puy and attended evening classes in sculpture. In 1899 his
son Jean, and then, in 1900, his son Pierre were born. Financial difficulties
made him to stay for some time with his parents.
During the period of 1899-1904 Matisse participated in a group exhibition
at Berthe Weil’s Gallery (1902), painted townscapes with Marquet in Paris,
spent the summer of 1904 working with Signac
and Cross at Saint-Tropez, and in
1905-6 painted views of Collioure.
In 1905 and 1906 Matisse, his talent now fully developed, exhibited at
the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants together with
Derain, Marquet, Vlaminck, Roauault and others and sparked off controversy.
The group was ironically nicknamed “Les Fauves” (The Wild ones). At that
time Matisse displayed a tendency towards monumental, decorative compositions.
If in 1900 it was only to earn some money that he took on the task of painting
a frieze for the World Fair at the Grand Palais in Paris, in 1907 he worked
with enthusiasm on a ceramic triptych, Nymph and Satyr, for
Osthaus’s mansion in Hagen, Westphalia. In 1908 Matisse painted the monumental
canvas The Red Room; and in 1909-10 executed two large decorative
panels, The Dance and The
Music on commissions from the Moscow businessman S. Shchukin.
Sculpture, too, began to occupy a significant place in Matisse’s artistic
endeavor and was exhibited for the first time in 1912, in New York. At
this time, Matisse set forth the theoretical basis for his art in his Notes
d’un peintre (1908) and expounded his views on painting in the art
school (the Atelier Matisse), which he had organized. But soon teaching
began to weigh heavily on the artist, and he withdrew more and more frequently
to Issy-des-Moulineaux.
In 1910 Matisse visited Munich to see an exhibition of Islamic art, in
1911 Seville, then Moscow on the invitation of S. Shchukin, and at the
end of that year, Tangier, Morocco. From 1914 to 1918 he divided his time
between Collioure, Paris and Nice. In 1918 a Matisse-and-Picasso
exhibition opened at the Guillaume Gallery: it was to a certain extent
indicative of the role of these two painters in contemporary art.
In 1920 Matisse designed the stage sets and costumes for S. Diaghilev’s
ballet The Nightingale (to Stravinsky’s music) and in 1939 for Léonide
Massine’s ballet Rouge et Noir (to the music of Shostakovich’s first
Symphony). In 1931-33 he painted a large decorative composition, The
Dance, for the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania;
the same years he fulfilled etching illustrations for Mallarmé’s
Poésies.
In 1934-35 Matisse produced cartoons for carpets, based on James Joyce’s
Ulysses.
During the Second World War Matisse lived in the south of France – Bordeaux,
Ciboure, Nice. In 1941 he underwent a serious operation. Confined to bed
for most of the ensuing period, he turned his attention to book design
and illustrations. He designed and illustrated Henri de Montherlant’s Pasiiphaë
in 1944, Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, Mariana Alcoforado’s Lettres
Portugaises and Reverdy’s Visages in 1946, and Ronsard’s Amours
in 1948. His unique book Jazz, published in 1947, contained a facsimile
reproduction of the text written in the artist’s own hand and illustrations
executed in gouache after Matisse’s cut-outs.
It was only after the end of the war that Matisse turned anew to monumental
compositions. He executed sketches for the stained-glass panel representing
St. Dominique in the church at Assy (1948), the interior decoration for
the Dominican chapel of Notre-Dame du Rosaire at Vence (1948-51), and sketches
for the stained-glass panel Rose for the Uniate Church in
New York (1954). In his last years he devoted a great deal of his time
to cut-outs and brush drawings.
The Musée Matisse was opened in 1952 at Le Cateau-Cambrésisi,
the birthplace of the artist. Matisse died on November 3, 1954 and was
buried in the cemetery at Cimiez.
Bibliography:
Matisse. by M. Alpatov. Moscow. 1969.
Matisse in Russia. by A. Kostenevich and N. Semenova. Moscow.
1993.
Henri Matisse on Art. Correspondence. Moscow. 1993.
Painting of Europe. XIII-XX centuries. Encyclopedic Dictionary.
Moscow. Iskusstvo. 1999.
Jazz
by Henri Matisse, Sophie Hawkes (Translator), Riva Castleman. George Braziller,
1992.
Matisse
Portraits by John Klein. Yale Univ Pr, 2001.
The
Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse: The Early Years, 1869-1908
by Hilary Spurling. Knopf, 1998.
Matisse
on Art (Documents of Twentieth-Century Art) by Henri Matisse,
Jack Flam. University of California Press, 1995.
Matisse
and Picasso: The Story of their Rivalry and Friendship by Jack
D. Flam. Westview Press, 2003.
Matisse
by Pierre Schneider (Author), Michael Taylor, Bridget Strevens Romer. Rizzoli,
2002.
The
Essential: Henri Matisse by Abrams. Harry N. Abrams, 1999.
Matisse,
Picasso, Miro--as I Knew Them by Rosamond Bernier. Knopf, 1991.