Matisse

Matisse and Derain: A study in contrasts
The New Criterion

James Panero reviews Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. After setting the stage with a discussion of Michel Eugène Chevreul’s theory of contrasting color and its influence on impressionist and post-impressionist painting, Panero traces the story of Matisse and Derain working together in […]

John Goodrich on Henri Matisse
Painters on Paintings

John Goodrich considers Henri Matisse’s Laurette in Green Robe (Black Background) in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Goodrich observes: “We … may become aware of something particularly lively about this semblance of a woman in a chair: the sense of her weight, and how her forms expand rhythmically across the chair, which […]

Matisse-Bonnard @ the Staedal Museum
AbCrit

Richard Ward reviews Matisse-Bonnard: Long Live Painting at the Staedal Museum Frankfurt, on view through January 14, 2018. Ward notes that the “difference of approach [of the two artists] is visible throughout the exhibition and manifests itself in various ways: Matisse’s primary creation is pictorial space. Even a simple, almost sketch-like painting, such as the amazing ‘Open […]

Alan Gouk on Key Modernist Paintings
AbCrit

Alan Gouk presents his thoughts on great modernist paintings by Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, Bonnard, Gauguin, Monet, and Braque. Gouk remarks: “What painting is about is claiming the surface – making it real to you, palpable, physically present, and tangible almost. At its best it is the expression of one’s involuntary response to surface, but without resorting […]

Matisse: The Joy of Things
New York Review of Books

Claire Messud reviews Matisse in the Studio at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, on view through July 9, 2017. Messud writes: “this glorious exhibition impresses the viewer also with simpler, more atavistic and abiding truths: Matisse’s passion for color, for light, for pattern, for flowers and the female figure; and his conviction—borne out in […]

Matisse in the Studio
ARTnews

Phyllis Tuchman reviews Matisse in the Studio at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, on view through July 9, 2017. Tuchman writes: “Though he closely observed his subjects, [Matisse] generally rendered them with a twist depending on his interests of the moment. Has any other show in recent times made us so acutely aware of […]

Matisse/Diebenkorn @ SFMOMA
Squarecylinder

Lawrence Gipe reviews Matisse/Diebenkorn at SFMOMA, on view through May 29, 2017. Gipe writes: “Curators Janet Bishop and Katherine Rothkopf have designed a rhythmic exhibition of ‘pairs,’ each of which is designed to illustrate Matisse’s sway over Diebenkorn… Without a doubt, Matisse/Diebenkorn delivers an intriguing narrative of inspiration and obsession: as the curators present it, […]

An Embarrassment of Riches: The Shchukin Collection
ARTnews

Maika Pollack reviews Icons of Modern Art: The Shchukin Collection at The Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, on view through March 5, 2017. Pollack writes: “A single room in which 13 vast Matisse paintings hang is the highlight of the exhibition. These are only a fraction of Shchukin’s 43 Matisses, but each is a knockout: In […]

The Shchukin Collection at Fondation Louis Vuitton
AbCrit

Alan Gouk reviews Icons of Modern Art. The Collection Shchukin at The Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, on view through March 5, 2017. Gouk writes: “This is what was so apparent in the confrontations afforded here, however many times one may have seen some of these pictures in different contexts and settings; how solidly and succulently […]

Matisse/Diebenkorn in Baltimore
ARTnews

Phyllis Tuchman reviews Matisse/Diebenkorn at the Baltimore Museum of Art, on view through January 29, 2017. Tuchman asserts: “Astonishingly, Diebenkorn’s paintings in Baltimore are never overshadowed, as you might expect, by Matisse’s masterpieces. The American … doesn’t just hold his own: he actually upstages Matisse… Like Matisse, he’s become the type of artist we expect to […]

What Diebenkorn & Matisse Taught Me
Getty Iris

Elyn Zimmerman reflects on his studies with Richard Diebenkorn on the occasion of Matisse/Diebenkorn at the Baltimore Museum of Art (through January 29, 2017) and at the San Francisco Museum of Art from March 11 – May 29, 2017. Zimmerman recalls: “A favorite topic [of Diebenkorn’s] was Henri Matisse… Diebenkorn spoke about the difficulty of […]

Matisse/Diebenkorn @ the Baltimore Museum of Art
Hyperallergic

Barry Nemett reviews Matisse/Diebenkorn at the Baltimore Museum of Art, on view through January 29, 2017. Nemet concludes: “Blurring distance and time, both men unapologetically embraced their aesthetic kindred spirits across oceans and ages, and brought them home. While passions enter artists’ studios, immaculate conceptions don’t. Connections, which give birth to creation, are at the […]