Henri Matisse Facts |
| Feb 16 2012 |
| {Articles >> Art History - Artists} |
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| Henri Matisse, Dance, 1910 via Wikipedia |
Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is a significant French artist whose work spans several modernist movements. As Robert Hughes puts it, "Matisse was born in 1869, the year the Cutty Sark was launched. The year he died, 1954, the first hydrogen bomb exploded at Bikini Atoll. Not only did he live on, literally, from one world into another; he lived through some of the most traumatic political events in recorded history, the worst wars, the greatest slaughters, the most demented rivalries of ideology, without, it seems, turning a hair." Although he is labelled as a Fauvist and an Expressionist, Matisse, like Picasso and Cezanne, is an artist whose work is often difficult to categorize.
Matisse was a key artist in the Fauve group.
His work was included in the 1913 Armory Show, where European Modernism was introduced to the American Public in New York City.
One of his most prodigious collectors was the Russian Sergey Shchukin; influential collectors like Shchukin brought French avant-garde art to Russia.
Began painting his Dance and Music pieces in 1910. He continued to revisit the Dance and Music themes, experimenting with form, for the rest of his career.
Best remembered for his decoupages or "cut-out" works, in which he reduced formal elements by cutting shapes from colored paper. This eliminated texture and color blending. Matisse began working with cut-outs in 1941 after a severe intestinal illness.
Worked on his Back sculpture series from 1908 to 1930.
Believed in the power of color.
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