Matisse in the Studio - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0878468439 ISBN 13: 9780878468430

Publisher: MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2017

Synopsis

The personal objects in Matisse’s studio form a secret history in his art

This book is the first in English to explore the essential role that Henri Matisse’s personal collection of objects played in his studio practice. The artist traveled with his collection even to temporary residences, and letters to family members often included requests for objects to be moved to where he was working, revealing them to be critical creative stimulants. Featured frequently in the modern master’s bold paintings, drawings and cutouts, and influencing the development of his work in sculpture, Matisse’s objects formed a secret history hiding in plain sight.

Works that span Matisse’s entire career are presented here alongside the objects that inspired them, from Asian vases and African masks to intricate textiles from the Islamic world. An introduction and five chapters take readers through studies of the object as actor and the studio as theater, the importance of African art in Matisse’s renderings of the human form and his sitters’ inner selves, and the invention and transformation of his own language of signs. With lush illustrations and archival images, Matisse in the Studio provides exceptional insights into the artist at work.

About this title

About the Author

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) was a painter, draftsman, sculptor and printmaker before turning to paper cut-outs in the 1940s. He followed a career-long path that he described as “construction by means of color.”

Ellen McBreen is Associate Professor of Art History at Wheaton College, Massachusetts.

Helen Burnham is Pamela and Peter Voss Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Suzanne Preston Blier is Allen Whitehill Clowes Professor of Fine Arts and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.

Ann Dumas is Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Jack Flam is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Art and Art History at Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and President of the Dedalus Foundation.

Claudine Grammont is Director and Chief Curator of the Musée Matisse, Nice.

Hélène Ivanoff is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Frobenius Institute of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt.

Marie-Thérèse Pulvenis de Seligny is the former Director and Chief Curator of the Musée Matisse, Nice.

Review

...Matisse loved beautiful, well-designed objects and had collected more than 200 by his death in 1954... they served him as visual references that opened his mind to new possibilities in seeing and creating. (Debbie Hagan Hyperallergic)

I can think of no other exhibition that has told us so much about what artists do and how they think. (Eric Gibson The Wall Street Journal)

Matisse in the Studio ...focuses on the artist’s relationship with his objects...― a seaglass green vessel, a Congolese mask, North African tapestries ― paired with the paintings where they appear. The result is a heightened sense of intimacy with his already sensual, summery paintings, and gives a glimpse into the studio ― and mental ― space of the artist. (Nina Maclaughlin Boston Globe)

As the same rotating cast of inanimate characters appears again and again in the paintings, we realize that what we are seeing is a memory play, a chronicle of the interaction over time between objects and owner. (John Dorfman Art & Antiques)

Edition details

• Publisher: MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0878468439
• ISBN 13: 9780878468430
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 215
• Editor: McBreen Ellen, Burnham Helen