Matisse in the Studio
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsman ship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts throughout the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture.
Along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp Matisse helped to define and influence radical contemporary art in the 20th century. Although he was initially labelled a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.
This sumptuous exhibition offers a rare glimpse into the artist’s personal collection, as well as the paintings, sculptures and drawings it inspired. Seen together, they reveal how Matisse’s masterful vision of rich and masterful energy first stemmed from the collage of patterns and rhythms which he found in the world of objects.
Royal Academy of Arts
5 August — 12 November 2017
Saturday – Thursday 10am – 6pm
Friday 10am – 10pm
The Sackler Wing, Burlington House
£15.50 (without donation £14). Concessions available. Friends of the RA, and under 16s when with a fee-paying adult, go free.