Musée de l'Orangerie, Philadelphia Art Museum, Musée Matisse Nice
2023
256 pages, 240 × 320 mm
Exhibition presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the musée de l’Orangerie, Paris.
Catalog published under the supervision of Matthew Affron, Cécile Debray and Claudine Grammont.
Photoengraving : Les Artisans du Regard, Paris
Printing : Graphicom (Italy).
The 1930s marked a turning point in the work of Henri Matisse. In spite of his success, he grew tired of the interiors of Nice and the languid nudes. With age and renown came questioning: what he needed was something new, both in his themes and in his painting techniques. Changing his scale, he tackled The Dance, a vast mural composition destined for the Barnes Foundation in Merion, and thus made a new start, on the threshold of his sixtieth year.
At a time of intense research, the painter’s work became radical and found itself at the heart of the debates on ideas and artistic currents that the Cahiers relayed. It is through this prism that the present book intends to explore the production of Matisse in the 1930s, in order to give full scope to this rich creative period, during which the artist established himself as one of the major figures of international modernism.
