The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in collaboration with the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, and the Center Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris is curated by Rebecca Rabinow, Department Curator of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
A true explosion of color for this exhibition and a profound analysis of the creation process that distinguishes Matisse's entire work contribute to giving this exhibition a particularly contemporary image of the artist.
Always curious and attentive to the ancient art that influenced him during his academic training, he then moved on to scrupulously observing the contemporary art he encountered in the Parisian galleries. He was fascinated by Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) and Paul Signac (1863-1935). We remember an exhibition of him in 1904 with works depicting still lifes that evoked certain landscapes by Cézanne, while the colors more akin to the work of Signac. It can be said that Matisse borrowed some stylistic elements of these two artists only to refine his research, his stylistic exploration.
His figures sink into a certain plasticity and as he himself stated, his intent was to condense the meaning of the body by searching for the essential lines. Here his painting places itself in a full-size concept and creates large life-size pairs such as: Le Luxe I, 1907, Center Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris and Le Luxe II, 1907-08, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen.
In 1914, he painted two large views from the window of his Paris studio (Notre-Dame, 1914, Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Dübi-Müller-Stiftung, Switzerland, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York). In this painting Matisse poses painting and couples offering alternative solutions for a new pictorial challenge.
Matisse's enthusiasm for working in series coincided with his renewed interest in impressionism and from here his mind began to attempt to capture the essence of a bright room in a series of canvases painted in Nice during the winter and the spring of 1917-18. Interior in Nice (Room at the Hôtel Beau-Rivage) (Philadelphia Museum of Art), The Open Window (Room at the Hôtel Beau-Rivage) (private collection), Interior with Violin (Room at the Hôtel Beau-Rivage) (Statens Museum for Kunst). And it was again in his mind when he painted the distinctive cliffs of Etretat in the 1920s—in Big Cliff-Fish (The Baltimore Museum of Art), Big Cliff-Two Rays (Norton Museum of Art), and Big Cliff-Eel (The Columbus Museum of Art).
In December 1945, six paintings by Matisse were exhibited at the Galerie Maeght in Paris. Each was matched with photographs documenting his evolution. In fact, since 1930 Matisse got into the habit with the help of a photographer, of photographing the various stages of work of all his works.
Hence the leitmotif of this exhibition, that of researching "the progressive development of works of art through their different states trying to draw conclusions on the precise signs created" The Metropolitan Museum exhibition will recreate the three walls of the Galerie Maeght exhibition, with La France (1939, Hiroshima Museum of Art), The Dream (1940, private collection), and Still Life with Magnolia (1941, Center Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris).
Matisse's work is certainly the object of an increasingly growing interest of international collectors, as demonstrated by the data recorded in the last year. In last November 2012 several drawings and oil works have passed such as: Tete de femme from 1949 estimated at 77-104 thousand USD was sold for 109 thousand USD, another face of a woman Eva, grande chevelure, estimated at 100-150 thousand was sold for 158,500 USD; Les Pêches oil painting from 1940 estimated at US$400-600 thousand sold for US$506,500; Nu Allongé (Odalisque) of 1921, oil on canvas, estimated 1-1,5 million USD sold for 1,202,500 USD; La fenêtre, oil on canvas from 1919 estimated at 600-900 thousand USD sold for 1,022,500 USD. Data that suggest that Marisse's art is not only appreciated but also sought after as a true investment.
