Collection: Matisse Henri

(Le Cateau Cambrésis 1869 - Nice 1954)

French painter, sculptor, engraver and illustrator, Henri Matisse is the most important exponent of the Fauves group (the wild beasts, the savages), a name given to a new line of artists following the exhibition at the 1905 Salon d'Automne for the roaring and distorted colours they used in their works.
From his earliest works he pushes the color tones to excess. He wants to paint with “the bluest blue and the reddest red possible” in order to express that indestructible joie de vivre , a constant characteristic of all his production.
Matisse came to experiment with lithographs and papiers gouache-découpé almost by chance, but in line with his long process of simplification of figures: convalescent from an illness, unable to paint, he began to cut out silhouettes from coloured paper retouched with gouache with scissors, which he then assembled by gluing them together, paying attention only to the balance of the forms and the chromatic harmony.
In 1947 he created the famous Jazz series, which he defined as “rhythmic improvisation”.
From 1950 to 1951 he produced the sketches for the Chapelle du Saint-Marie du Rosaire in Vence. He defines this work as the masterpiece of his existence: unlike his first works where the color was shouted and provocative, here the colors are sung, harmonious, pure.
Now eighty years old, with the series Dernières Œuvres he leaves us his spiritual testament: from this period are his very famous Nu Bleu , extraordinary rhythmic, essential profiles. These works are a true hymn to life, an explosion of colors, shapes and lines of extreme purity, the last masterpiece of an eclectic and tireless artist.