Henri Matisse
Pablo Picasso believed he had only one equal in the world of art, Henri Matisse. The two of them re-imagined the possibilities of visual art and helped to define what we think of as twentieth century art. Matisse, who was older and died before Picasso, was born in 1869. He had prepared to be a lawyer, but in 1890 was confined to a bed because of illness. He began to draw, and never stopped. His early works were an extension of the Impressionists. A 1905 group exhibit in Paris featured Matisse’s new work of bright colors laid heavily on the canvas straight from the tubes, with short determined brush strokes. This work, and that of his colleagues, was thought of as “wild” not only in the technique but in the images of individuals and nature: the Fauvist (“wild beasts”) movement was born. In 1918, the Guillaume Gallery held a Matisse-Picasso exhibit. Like Picasso, Matisse continued to work in all areas of the arts throughout his life, even when confined to a wheel chair or bed. Matisse created large scale collages, designed the theatre sets for Diaghilev, worked on the interior of the Notre-Dame du Rosaire at Vence, illustrated the books of Mallarmé’s Poésies and Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, and created his own book, Jazz. The Musée Matisse opened in 1952. Matisse died two years later in 1954.
