1869 -1954 · Fauvism, Nice and invention through color

Pure color, arabesque, decorative space and cut papers make Henri Matisse one of the major inventors of modern art.

Henri Matisse was born at Cateau-Cambrésis in 1869. Intended for law, he discovered painting during a convalescence and moved to Paris in 1891. After the Académie Julian and the workshop of Gustave Moreau, he studied the old masters while watching Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Signac. Luxury, calm and voluptuousness first explored divisionism, but Matisse soon wanted to build with larger colored surfaces. In Collioure, during the summer of 1905, work alongside André Derain definitively freed his palette. In Collioure, during the summer of 1905, work alongside André Derain definitively freed his palette. In Collioure, during the summer of 1905, work alongside André Derain definitively freed his palette. Woman in the Hat and The Green Ray provoked the birth of the word "fauves" at the Salon d'Automne. Color no longer imitates nature: it organizes space and carries emotion. There Joie de vivre brings together nude, landscape and music in a vast modern pastoral. For the Russian collector Sergei Shchukin, Matisse paints Dance and Music, monumental compositions reduced to a few bodies, lines and fields of color. L'Atelier rouge pushes this logic further by covering the space with a continuous red where furniture and paintings remain by their contours alone. During the 1910s, his language sometimes became more austere and almost abstract. From 1917, Nice offered it new light. Interiors, windows, fabrics, odalisques and models reintroduced a decorative sensuality without canceling previous research. Painter, designer, sculptor, engraver and illustrator, Matisse tirelessly pursues the union of drawing and color. After a serious operation in 1941, he invented a practice with cut-out gouache papers which allowed him to "draw in color". Jazz, the Blue Nudes and the large wall compositions belong to this last revolution. Between 1948 and 1951, he designed the Rosary Chapel in Vence, from architecture to stained glass windows and liturgical vestments. Died in Nice in 1954, Matisse left behind an immense body of work whose simplicity each period redefined as the result of demanding research. Died in Nice in 1954, Matisse left behind an immense body of work, each period of which redefined simplicity as the result of demanding research. Died in Nice in 1954, Matisse left behind an immense body of work, each period of which redefined simplicity as the result of demanding research. Died in Nice in 1954, he designed the Rosary Chapel in Vence, from architecture to stained glass windows and liturgical vestments. Died in Nice in 1954, he designed the Rosary Chapel in Vence, from architecture to stained glass windows and liturgical vestments. Died in Nice in 1954, he designed the Rosary Chapel in Vence, from architecture to stained glass windows and liturgical vestments. Died in Nice prioritize color.

Matisse never simplifies for ease: he removes, moves and intensifies until color, line and space become one clear feeling.