Henri Matisse
Henri Emile Benoit Matisse was born on the 31st of December 1869 in La Cateau-Cambresis, Nord, France. He was the first born child of Emile Matisse and Heloise Gérars, owners of a general store that sold household goods and seed.
As a young man, Matisse planned a legal career and so began studying law in Paris in 1887/88. In 1889 he spent a year as a clerk in a solicitor’s office but had to take a year out in 1890 when he was bedridden after an intestinal operation. During his convalescence Matisse chose to draw as a pastime and it was then that he discovered his true calling and decided to become an artist.
Many years of learning followed. Matisse studied under Bouguereau at the Académie Julian and later transferred (1892) to Gustave Moreau’s studio at the Ecole Beaux-Arts. Here he met the woman who would become his future wife, Amelia Paraere and in 1894 they had an illegitimate child together, Marguerite. They finally married in 1898. During this period he also attended the Ecole Nationale des Arts Decoratifs. He made his debut at the Salon de la Soiciete Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1896 and just over one year later displayed his La Dessert, a large canvas that showed the influence of the impressionists.
When Moreau died in 1895, Matisse went on to study for a short while with Cormon, before entering the Academie Carriere where he met Puy and Derain. Matisse’s family was now growing with the birth of his sons Jean and Pierre which put a burden on the purse strings – so Matisse and his family moved in with his parents.
Matisse participated in group exhibitions at Bertha Weil’s Gallery between 1899 and 1904; he painted townscapes in Paris with Marquet and spent the entire summer of 1904 working with Signac and Cross at Saint-Tropez. Later, in 1905/1906 he painted views of Collioure. Also, at this time with his talent fully developed he exhibited at the Salon d’ Automne and the Salon des Independants together with Roauault, Derain, Vlaminck, Marquet and others. There exhibition was to spark off controversy. The painters were heavily criticized as wild beasts, and their pictures, flaming defiant canvases, were condemned as impossible. Their nickname was Le Fauves – the wild ones.
Matisse became the leader of the young rebel artists who had brought the modern art movement in the early 1900s to Paris. In 1907 Matisse worked with enthusiasm on Nymph and Satyr, a ceramic triptych, for Osthaus’s mansion in Hagen, Westphalia. He painted the monumental Red Room canvas in 1908 and in 1909/1910 the two large decorative panels, The Music and The Dance on commission from S. Shchukin, the Russian business man. For the first time in 1912 Matisse exhibited his sculptures.
Matisse visited Munich in 1910 to see an exhibition of Islamic art before going on to Seville in 1911 and then Moscow at the invitation of S. Shchukin – the Russian business man who had earlier commissioned a piece by Matisse. Towards the end of that year he visited Tangier in Morocco.
Between 1914 and 1918 Matisse divided his time between Nice, Paris and Collioure. In 1918 he collaborated with Picasso and they held an exhibition at the Guillaume Gallery. In 1920 he was commissioned to design the costumes and stage sets for Diaghilev’s ballet, The Nightingale and also again in 1939 for Leonide Massine’s ballet, Rouge et Noir. During the years 1931 to 1933 Matisse painted a large decorative composition, The Dance for the Barnes Foundation in Pennsylvania, the same year he also did some etchings illustrations for Mallarmé’s Poésies. In 1934-35 he produced cartoons that were based on James Joyce’s Ulysses.
When the Second World War broke out in 1939 Matisse lived in the south of France in Nice, Bordeaux and Ciboure. Plagued by ill health he again underwent a serious operation in 1941 and whilst he was convalescing he turned his hand to the design of books and illustrations. His most notable design and illustrations include Montherlant’s Pasiphae (1944): Mariana Alcoforado’s Lettres Portugaises, Baudelaire’s, Les Fleurs du Mai, Reverdy’s Visages and Ronsard’s Armours. In 1947 he produced a unique book, Jazz, which contained a facsimile reproduction of the text written by Matisse’s own hand with illustrations using gouache.
At the end of the Second World War Matisse turned his hand once again to monumental compositions. He completed in 1948 sketches for the stained glass panel representing Dominique in the church at Assy. He also completed the interior decoration for the chapel of Notre-Dame du Rosaire at Vence between 1948 and 1951. And, finally sketches for the Rose stained glass panel for the Uniate Church in New York in 1954. In 1952 the Musee Matisse was opened in Le Cateau-Cambresis Henri Matisse’s birth place.
Matisse died on the 3rd of November 1954 at the age of 85. He is buried in the cemetery at Cimiez.
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