Henri Matisse facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Henri Matisse
Matisse in 1913
Born	Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (1869-12-31)December 31, 1869 Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France
Died	November 3, 1954(1954-11-03) (aged 84) Nice, France
Education	Académie Julian, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Gustave Moreau
Known for	Painting printmaking sculpture drawing collage
Notable work	Woman with a Hat (1905) The Joy of Life (1906) Nu bleu (1907) La Danse (1909) L'Atelier Rouge (1911)
Movement	Fauvism, Modernism, Post-Impressionism
Spouse(s)	Amélie Noellie Parayre ​ ​ (m. 1898; div. 1939)​
Patron(s)	Sergei Shchukin, Gertrude Stein, Etta Cone, Claribel Cone, Sarah Stein, Albert C. Barnes

Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (December 31, 1869 – November 3, 1954) was a French visual artist. He was a draftsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but most people know him as a painter. He is recognized as one of leading figures in modern art.

Early life

Woman Reading (La Liseuse), 1895, oil on board, 61.5 x 48 cm, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Musée Matisse

Henri Matisse was born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, in the Nord department in Northern France on New Year's Eve in 1869. He was the oldest son of a wealthy grain merchant. He grew up in Bohain-en-Vermandois, Picardie, France.

In 1887, he went to Paris to study law. He worked as a court administrator in Le Cateau-Cambrésis after gaining his qualification.

Love of art

He first started to paint when he was 20, in 1889, while he was recovering from appendicitis. To cheer him up, his is mother brought him art supplies. Art became "a kind of paradise," and he decided to become an artist. In 1891, he returned to Paris to study art at the Académie Julian under William-Adolphe Bouguereau and at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts under Gustave Moreau.

Art forms

Painting

At first, Matisse painted still lifes and landscapes in a traditional style. However, in 1896, he visited Australian painter John Russell who showed him Impressionism and the work of his friend Vincent van Gogh. Matisse changed his style, leaving his earth-colored palette for bright colors.

Woman with a Hat, 1905. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Beginning around 1900, Matisse and fellow artist André Derain led an art movement called fauvism, an art style that used bright colors. He and Derain friendly rivals. Each artist had his own followers. One of Matisse's most famous fauvist paintings is Woman with a Hat. After 1906, the Fauvist movement declined. This did not affect Matisse's career. He continued to absorb new influences.

In 1906, Matisse traveled to Algeria to study African art and Primitivism. He spent two months in Spain studying Moorish art.

Sculptures

Henri Matisse, 1905, Sleep, wood, exhibition Blue Rose (Голубая Роза), 1907, location unknown

Sometimes Matisse made sculptures when he was having trouble with a painting. The sculpture was a 3-D version of something he wanted to paint. He would then paint the figure in 2-D. Matisse made more than seventy sculptures in his lifetime.

Later art forms

During World War II, Matisse was still allowed to show his art in France. He also worked as a graphic artist and made black-and-white illustrations for several books and over one hundred original lithographs.

In 1941, after being diagnosed with duodenal cancer, painting and sculpture became difficult for Matisse. He turned to making collages made from cut paper. He began with small works, but eventually, his art transformed into murals or room-sized works.

Friendship with Picasso

Around April 1906, Matisse met Pablo Picasso. The two became lifelong friends and rivals. Both artists painted women and still lifes most frequently. One important difference between them is that Matisse drew and painted from nature, while Picasso worked from imagination.

Personal life and family

Henri and Amélie Matisse, 1898

Henri Matisse, May 20, 1933. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten

With the model Caroline Joblau, he had a daughter, Marguerite, born in 1894.

In 1898, he married Amélie Noellie Parayre; the two raised Marguerite together and had two sons, Jean (born 1899) and Pierre (born 1900), who opened a modern art gallery in New York City during the 1930s. Marguerite and Amélie often served as models for Matisse.

Matisse's wife Amélie ended their 41-year marriage in July 1939, dividing their possessions equally between them.

Henri Matisse's grandson Paul Matisse is an artist and inventor living in Massachusetts. Matisse's great-granddaughter Sophie Matisse is active as an artist.

Death

Matisse died of a heart attack at the age of 84 on November 3, 1954. He is buried in the cemetery of the Monastère Notre Dame de Cimiez, in the Cimiez neighborhood of Nice.

Henri Matisse quotes

• "There are always flowers for those who want to see them."
• "Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us."
• "Creativity takes courage."
• "I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have a light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me."
• "Work cures everything."

Interesting facts about Henri Matisse

Tombstone of Henri Matisse and his wife Amélie Noellie, cemetery of the Monastère Notre Dame de Cimiez, Cimiez, France

• Matisse was influenced by the works of earlier masters such as Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Nicolas Poussin, and Antoine Watteau, as well as by modern artists, such as Édouard Manet, and by Japanese art.
• Chardin was one of the painters Matisse most admired.
• Matisse admired other painters and spent a lot of money on their works.
• Matisse had a long friendship with the Russian art collector Sergei Shchukin. He created one of his major works La Danse specially for Shchukin.
• Gertrude Stein and the Cone sisters Claribel and Etta from Baltimore, became major patrons of Matisse and Picasso. They collected hundreds of their paintings and drawings.
• Matisse's friends started the Académie Matisse in Paris. It was a private art school that operated from 1907 - 1911.
• His family was involved with the French resistance. His son Pierre, an art dealer in New York City, helped the Jewish and anti-Nazi French artists to escape occupied France and enter the United States. Matisse's estranged wife, Amélie, was a typist for the French Underground and jailed for six months. His daughter Marguerite was sentenced to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany by the Gestapo.
• Many of Matisse's art pieces were lost or seized by the Nazis during the Nazi years.
• In 1952, he established a museum dedicated to his work, the Matisse Museum in Le Cateau.
• The Musée Matisse in Nice, a municipal museum, has one of the world's largest collections of Matisse's works. The museum, which opened in 1963, is located in the Villa des Arènes, a seventeenth-century villa in the neighborhood of Cimiez.

Early paintings

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  Blue Pot and Lemon (1897), Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

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  Le Mur Rose, 1898, Jewish Museum Frankfurt

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  Fruit and Coffeepot (1898), Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

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  Vase of Sunflowers (1898), Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

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  Still Life with Compote, Apples and Oranges, 1899, The Cone Collection, Baltimore Museum of Art

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  Crockery on a Table (1900), Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

Selected works: 1901–1910

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  Luxembourg Gardens, 1901, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

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  Dishes and Fruit, 1901, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

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  A Glimpse of Notre-Dame in the Late Afternoon, 1902, Albright–Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

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  Open Window, Collioure, 1905, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

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  Les toits de Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

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  Portrait of Madame Matisse (The green line), 1905, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark

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  Self-Portrait in a Striped T-shirt, 1906, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark

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  The Young Sailor II, 1906, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

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  Vase, Bottle and Fruit, 1906, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

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  Madras Rouge, The Red Turban, 1907, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  (Exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show)

Selected works: 1910–1917

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  Still Life with Geraniums, 1910, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany

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  L'Atelier Rouge, 1911, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City

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  The Conversation, c.1911, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

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  Window at Tangier, 1911–12, The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

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  Goldfish, 1912, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

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  Zorah on the Terrace, 1912, The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

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  Le Rifain assis, 1912–13, 200 × 160 cm. Barnes Foundation

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  Portrait of the Artist's Wife, 1913, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

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  La glace sans tain (The Blue Window), 1913, Museum of Modern Art

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  Woman on a High Stool, 1914, Museum of Modern Art, New York City

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  View of Notre-Dame, 1914, Museum of Modern Art

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  Les poissons rouges (Interior with a Goldfish Bowl), Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

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  French Window at Collioure, 1914. Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris

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  The Yellow Curtain, 1915, Museum of Modern Art, New York

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  Henri Matisse, The Moroccans, 1915–16, oil on canvas, 181.3 x 279.4 cm, Museum of Modern Art

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  Auguste Pellerin II, 1916–17, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris

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  The Painter and His Model (Le Peintre dans son atelier), 1916–17, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris

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  Three Sisters and The Rose Marble Table (Les Trois sœurs à La Table de marbre rose), 1917, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

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  Portrait de famille (The Music Lesson), 1917, oil on canvas, 245.1 x 210.8 cm, Barnes Foundation

Partial list of works

Illustrations

• Jean Cocteau, Bertrand Guégan (1892–1943); L'almanach de Cocagne pour l'an 1920–1922, Dédié aux vrais Gourmands Et aux Francs Buveurs

Writings

• Notes of a Painter ("Note d'un peintre"), 1908
• Painter's Notes on Drawing ("Notes d'un peintre sur son dessin"), July 1939
• Jazz, 1947
• Matisse on Art, collected by Jack D. Flam, 1973, ISBN: 0-7148-1518-7
• Chatting with Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview, Getty Publications, 2013, ISBN: 978-1-60606-128-2

Portrayal in media and literature

Film dramatizations

• Matisse was played by Yves-Antoine Spoto in the 2011 film Midnight in Paris.
• Matisse was portrayed by Joss Ackland in the 1996 Merchant Ivory production of Surviving Picasso.

Exhibition on screen

• The Museum of Modern Art's Matisse retrospective was part of the film series "Exhibition on Screen," which broadcasts productions to movie theaters.
• The film Matisse From MoMA and Tate Modern combines high-definition footage of the galleries with commentary from curators, museum administrators and, through narration of words from the past, Matisse himself. "We want to show the exhibition as well as we possibly can to the audience who can’t get there", said director Phil Grabsky. Inspired by a similar "event cinema" produced by the Met, Grabsky started his series to simulate the experience of strolling through an art exhibit.

Literature

• The Ray Bradbury short story "The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse" contains an allusion to the artist painting an eye on a poker chip for an American man to use as a monocle.
• In Michael Ondaatje's Running in the Family, there is a section called "Don't talk to me about Matisse."
• In Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer Miller writes several pages about the importance about the works and importance of "the bright sage" Matisse, his hero.

Music

• The British composer Peter Seabourne wrote a septet "The Sadness of the King" (2007) inspired by the late paper cut La Tristesse du Roi.

See also

In Spanish: Henri Matisse para niños