Photography Art

Grete Weiser's Memorabilia is a b/w postcard reproducing a beautiful photographic portrait of the German actress,Grete Weiser (hannover, 1903 - Bad Toldz, 1970) with her little dog....

Artist: Dali, Salvador Title: Nude Couple, Large Serpent Series: Dali Illustre Casanova (seven tales by Jacques Casanova) Date: 1967 Medium: drypoint with added watercolor Unfra...

Boy with Fish Thomas Kerry, British/American Date: circa 1970 Oil on Board, signed and dedicated verso Size: 24 x 20 inches Frame Size: 29 x 25 inches

Circle of Sir Peter Lely Dutch, (1618-1680) Portrait of a Lady, traditionally identified as Princess Henrietta Anne Stuart Oil on canvas Image...

Valérie - Signed limited edition archival pigment print - Edition of 5 This image was captured on film. The negative was scanned creating a digital file which is then printe...

This photograph of Marilyn Monroe was shot by photographer, George Barris, in 1962 on Santa Monica Beach in California. This photograph is from a collection entitled "The Last Photos...

Green Iron Jungles N7 is a unique round acrylic on aluminum and gloss varnish painting by Spanish contemporary artist Calo Carratalá, diameter is 120 cm (47.2 in). The artwork is sig...

Silver Gelatin Print Edition size: 15 Unframed size: 16 x 20 inches Artist Bio: After starting his career at the age of 14 as a copy boy in the Washington bureau of the Associate...

'Stay On Target!' By BATIK Archival pigment pop art print of a Star Wars TIE fighter chasing actor Cary Grant from the infamous scene in Hitchcock’s North By North West BATIK is a London based fine artist and image maker. Certificate of authenticity supplied Paper size 60x40 inches / 152 x 101 cm unframed signed and numbered on front edition of 3 only this size OTHER Sizes available (in inches): Edition sizes vary with the chosen paper size Classical 12x16 (Edition of 50) Luxe 20x16 (Edition of 35) Longe 30x20 (Edition of 25) Grande XL 40x30 (Edition of 10) Giant 60x40 (Edition of 3) FRAMING: Please note that this piece is unframed – however, we offer a full framing service. If you would like this piece framed, please contact us for a quote. Black and white, running, blur, motion, shadow, texture, grain, Star Wars, TIE fighter, chasing, man, males, photography, pop art andy warhol hitchcock

QUAINT INTERIOR Size: 60 x 51 cm (including frame) Oil on canvas A charming and intimate interior composition dated 1998 and painted in a naïve style, executed in oil onto canvas. ...

Steve Jones "The father of nuclear fusion" Showing Titanium is an original, vintage, and black and white photograph realized by "Agenzia Giornalistica Ital...

AP, printed on aluminum. Includes flush mounted frame "Suzanne in Chair" is among Joyce Tenneson's most famous works from her "Transformations" series. Tenneson's style has been des...

In his iconic painting, Grant Wood used his dentist and his sister as models. The Painting depicts the quiet desperation of midwestern life. Published by McGaw Graphics. Paper Size:...

This reproduction of Mujer con Sombrero Rojo was featured in the Miami International Art Exposition in 1991. The piece showcases Botero’s iconic style, depicting a voluptuous woman a...

Oil on canvas Su Yu is a Chinese artist born in 1987 who lives & works in Beijing in China. He was an old student of prestigious art teachers as Shi Liang & Chen Danqing at Oil Pain...

A charming watercolour depiction of the Holy family's flight to Egypt. They stop to rest beneath a tree with an infant St. John the Baptist to the right of the composition. Unsigned....

David Bailey OASIS, 2006 Archival Inkjet on paper Signed by the artist, on verso Image: 50.8 x 50.8 cm Sheet: 58.4 x 58.4 cm Edition of 15

Nachum Gutman was one of Israeli's leading impressionistic artists, who painted classic scenes of the landscape and images of the country. His works are in many museums and his work...

THE JOY OF MARILYN is a fine art exhibition poster by the renowned American photographer and film producer, Sam Shaw produced in 1986 in conjunction with Sam Shaw's photography exhibition in New York City. THE JOY OF MARILYN was printed in black and white duotone using offset lithography techniques on white satin finish paper, fine quality poster, copyright text printed below image on lower right. THE JOY OF MARILYN photo...

David Bowie, Aladdin Eyes Open, 1973 by Brian Duffy. This photograph was taken during the photo shoot for the album cover for Aladdin Sane, January 1973, London. This is an exquisite FRAMED* Archival Pigment print. *Note delivery includes secure art crating & shipping. Framed in black wood with glass and matt Stamped by The Duffy Archive, UK. Supplied with certificate of authenticity. Gorgeous print measuring 115 x 115 x 3 cm (framed). The image area is 95 x 95 cm. Produced utilising the original contact sheet. We ship regularly using Fedex Express services and ship to all international locations. About these images : “It wasn’t until we saw the contact sheets the next day I remember thinking, God this is spectacular. You just knew you had cracked it, boy, did you know it.” Celia Philo DAVID BOWIE: FIVE SESSIONS PHOTOGRAPHS BY DUFFY Brian Duffy photographed David Bowie over five sessions between August 1972 and April 1980, and made the iconic Aladdin Sane album cover image. January 1973–Session two–Aladdin Sane. It has been called ‘The Mona Lisa of Pop’. Who could have imagined that the moment he clicked the shutter on the Hasselblad in early 1973 that one of those images would become known as a cultural icon? – Chris Duffy Some background to the shoot. The background stories to the Aladdin Sane shoot are told in rich detail in the book Bowie Duffy – Five Sessions. In particular it is a delight to read Duffy’s (a self confessed Marxist anarchist) analysis and compare that with the measured tone of Tony Defries. If you don’t have a copy of the book, here’s a flavour of their respective views – which amount to much the same thing – just expressed in different ways. First up, Tony Defries: “I was looking for an iconic cover image and artwork that would help me to persuade RCA that Bowie was sufficiently important to warrant megastar treatment and funding in order to propel him to exactly that status. Engaging a master, world-class photographer to shoot the project /brand and to design the artwork was the best way to send that message. Brian had the ability to make the mundane image interesting and the interesting image fascinating.” Then Duffy: “Tony wanted to make the most expensive cover he could possibly get a record company to pay for, because he realised that if it cost fifty quid, well, so what – but if it cost £5,000 the record company were now having to pay attention. He said “Can you make it expensive?“and I said “No problem old love.” I proposed– One: A Dye-transfer. A genius method of being able to spend the most amount of money to get a reproduction from a colour transparency onto a piece of paper. Two: Get the plates made, where? Switzerland. Then employ me to design it and create it – even better and more wasteful.” The Aladdin Sane session was a real team effort. The location was Duffy’s studio at 151a King Henry’s Road in Primrose Hill, London, which had been the setting for the Ziggy Stardust session the previous August. Duffy had agreed with Tony Defries that his design agency, Duffy Design Concepts, which he ran with Celia Philo, would design the sleeve. Present in Primrose Hill on that January day in 1973 were Duffy, David Bowie, Celia Philo, Tony Defries, French make-up artist Pierre Laroche, and Duffy’s studio manager Francis Newman, who also acted as his assistant that day. Follow-up work on the detailed airbrushing required to create the final artwork was carried out by Philip Castle. What about that lightning bolt flash and the liquid pool? The idea for the lightning bolt came from David Bowie. The realisation of that lighting bolt into the form that appeared on the sleeve was down to Duffy. Its source is believed to be a rice cooker that was in Duffy’s studio – and which had a small logo with a red and blue flash. Francis Newman remembers, “Pierre stared to apply this tiny little flash on his face and when Duffy saw that he said, “No, not like that, like this” and literally drew it right across his face and said to Pierre, “Now, fill that in.”” The red colour was lipstick. Adding the pool of liquid to the collarbone was Duffy’s idea, and this was brilliantly airbrushed in as part of the post-production work by Philip Castle. David Bowie explained the background to Rolling Stone magazine, that it was a “Lightning bolt. An electric kind of thing. Instead of, like, the flame of a lamp, I thought he would probably be cracked by lightning. Sort of an obvious-type thing, as he was sort of an electric boy. But the teardrop was Brian Duffy’s. He put that on afterward, just popped it in there. I thought it was rather sweet.” DAVID BOWIE David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie (/ˈboʊi/ BOH-ee),[2] was an English singer-songwriter and actor. He was a leading figure in the music industry and is considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, with his music and stagecraft having a significant impact on popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million albums worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded ten platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, and released eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and nine gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Born in Brixton, South London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child, eventually studying art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. "Space Oddity" became his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969. After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of his single "Starman" and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie's style shifted radically towards a sound he characterised as "plastic soul", initially alienating many of his UK devotees but garnering him his first major US crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the album Young Americans. In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth, directed by Nicolas Roeg, and released Station to Station. The following year, he further confounded musical expectations with the electronic-inflected album Low (1977), the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that came to be known as the "Berlin Trilogy". "Heroes" (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise. After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes", its parent album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and "Under Pressure", a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He reached his commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance; the album's title track topped both UK and US charts. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. He also continued acting; his roles included Major Jack Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth (1986), Pontius Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Nikola Tesla...

Original mixed media on paper by Peter max . In good condition . Comes with coa. Measures 23x22

A charming miniature study of a Victorian woman dressed in a black ruffled dress and a hat. Presented in an oval brass frame. On a white bone-like substrate.

"With Open Arms" Canada, 2018 20 x 30 in / Edition of 6 - $4,500 Also available: 32 x 48 in / Edition of 6 - $7,500 40 x 60 in / Edition of 6 - $10,500 50 x 75 in / Edition of 6 ...

Japanese Custom is an original Hand-colored lithograph on creamy paper realized by an anonymous artist in the 19th Century. Titled in Italian in Italian on the lower center "Dama Giapponese". Very good conditions. A precious hand-colored artwork representing a Japanese costume...

Christian - Signed limited edition archival pigment print, 1984 - Edition of 5 This image was captured on film. The negative was scanned creating a digital file which was then pr...

Ohh Baby ! - Oversize Signed limited edition - Pop Art - Kate Moss by the London based contemporary pop art image creator and artist, BATIK. Measures 30 x 20" inches / 76 x 51 cm...

This framed Picasso print, is an offset lithographic book plate from a captivating book, entitled Toros y Toreros (Bulls and Bullfighters), which ...

Modern Art Poster. Screenprint on smooth, ivory wove paper , edited in 1967. Limited edition of 300 copies , numbered as 111/300 in lower right corner. Hand-signed by artist in penc...

Jean-Michel Folon (1934- ) Jean-Michel Folon was born in Brussels. He began to study architecture but abandoned it in favor of drawing, which allowed more expressive studies. His drawings have appeared in numerous magazines including Time, Fortune, The New Yorker, and L'Express. In 1969 he had his first one-man show in the United States, followed closely by exhibitions in Tokyo, Venice, Milan, London, Sao Paulo, Geneva, Brussels, and Paris. Folon has illustrated works by Kafka, Lewis Carroll, and Ray Bradbury. In 1973 he created a series of watercolors titled La Mort d'un Arbre (The Death of a Tree), for which Max Ernst created a lithograph as a preface. Folon has completed a 176-square-foot painting for a subway station in Brussels and a 160-square-foot painting for Waterloo Station in London. He is most comfortable using the engraving and drypoint techniques of printmaking. He designed theatre sets, magazine covers, advertisements, posters, wine labels, etc. Often involved in noble undertakings, such as working for world peace, for the disabled, and for safeguarding our environment, he worked on the graphic creation of the "Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man" and produced posters for Unicef, Greenpeace and Amnesty International."  1968 It conceives mural for the house of France to Triennial of Milan, animated of 500 luminous points. It exposes 60 works to the Gallery from France in Paris, and creates a book of end of the year for The Museum of Modern Art of New York. moma. 1969 First exposures to New York, Lefebre Gallery. 1970 Visit Japan and shows in Tokyo and Osaka. It takes part in XXXVè Biennale of Venice in the house of Belgium. First exposure in Italy, in Galleria del Milione in Milan, October. 1971 Carry out a significant exposure to the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris with 90 works which will be presented later on at the Palate of the Art schools of Charleroi, the Museum of Modern art of Brussels and at Castello Sforzesco of Milan. 1972 Expose to Arts Club of Chicago. 1973 Illustrate the Metamorphosis of Kafka. Alice Editions publishes a collection of watercolours, the Death of a tree, of which he writes also the text. Max Ernst prefaces the book of an original lithography. It belongs to the selection of Belgian artists of XIIè Biennale of Sao Paulo, whose Great Price is decreed to him. 1974 Carry out ten etchings and aquatintes for the Circular Ruins of Jorge Luis Borges. Expose to Milan, the Marconi Studio. For a room of the new subway of Brussels it carries out Magic City, painting of 165 m2. 1975 Undertakes the one second mural decoration, Paysage, for Olivetti, in Waterloo Station in London. Its correspondence in images with Giorgio Soavi is the subject of a book, Lettres with Giorgio, published by Alice Editions. 1976 Expose to the Boymans-van-Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, then in Deutsches Plakatmuseum, Essen. Carry out covers colors for various magazines, of which Time, which will publish four during years of them. 1977 Expose to Institute of Contemporary Art in London and Spoleto within the framework of XXè Festival, of which it draws the poster. 1978 Expose to the Museum of Modern art of Liege with Milton Glaser. Illustrate Alcools and Calligrammes , of Guillaume Apollinaire. 1979 Illustrate Martian Chroniques , of Ray Bradbury and the complete work of Jacques Prévert in 7 volumes. Exposure of watercolours to the Berggruen Gallery, Paris. 1980 By a series of twelve watercolours and joinings, it illustrates the Autumn in Peking, of Boris Vian, and by a continuation of etchings and aquatintes, the Useless beauty, of Guy of Maupassant. 1981 At the request of Michel Soutter, it designs the decorations of the theatre for works of Frank Martin and Giacomo Pucccini represented with the Large Theatre of Geneva. It carries out images projected for Histoire of the soldier , Igor Stravinsky, with the theatre of the Life in Brussels. 1982 The Museum from the Post office in Paris exposes its work engraved and the Museum Ingres de Montauban organizes an exposure. 1983 It carries out films in drawings in its workshop and turns of the short films to New York, Los Angeles and the Orleans News. Improvise a continuation in images, Conversation, with Milton Glaser, published by Alice Editions. 1984 Retrospective of its posters to Defense in Paris. It carries out the illustrations of the poetic of Guillaume Apollinaire and serious work a succession of etchings and aquatintes for Pluies of New York d' Albert Camus. Exposure to the museum Picasso d' Antibes. 1985 It goes to Japan for a retrospective which will be presented at Tokyo, Osaka and Kamakura. Close to the Door from Italy...

This black and white capture features portrait of Rhonda Fleming sitting beside dog on bed at home.Rhonda Fleming was an American film and television actress and singer. She acted in...

Black and white capture of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. posed sitting on a film set petting a dog. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was an American actor, producer, and decorated naval officer of Wor...

Black and white portrait of comedian and actor Art Carney posed holding his cat. Art Carney was an American actor and comedian. A recipient of an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award...

Screen print on black plike paper. Hand signed on front by Snik. Unnumbered edition (outside the main edition of 12). Artwork is in excellent condition. Certificate of Authenticit...

Après Midi en Grèce II Acrylic on Canvas 56 x 46 cm Après Midi en Grèce II is an exploration of classical inspiration through the lens of Diachronic Cubism. This 56 x 46 cm acrylic...

Portrait of Annie Lennox is a vintage photographic print on RC paper. Hand-written notes on the back. Excellent conditions. Dim: cm 24 x 18 In the pic...

Bert stern Marilyn Monroe The last sitting Pearls 3 Tirage inkjet 50 exemplaires 2011 33 x 48 cms Signé recto / verso Daté et signé au dos Certificat signé et daté de la main de ...

From the David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Collection The Ruttenbergs are longtime art lovers who have collected abstract expressionist paintings, African art, sculpture, graphics, old watches and photographs-lots and lots of photographs. They started collecting them in the 1960s when the medium was still the stepchild of the arts. They kept collecting until they had more than 3,000 prints, 99 of which are in the Art Institute exhibit, ``The Intuitive Eye: Photographs from the Collection of David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg.`` The show encompasses the entire history of photography with black-and-white and color prints from every genre, It includes street photography by Walker Evans and Garry Winogrand, glamour shots by Edward Steichen and Richard Avedon, nudes by Robert Mapplethorpe and Nicholas Muray...

Alina • 2009 • Edition of 18 prints in 3 different sizes. All prints are numbered and signed. Printed on Hahnemühle Archival Paper. Three different sizes are available, the series ...

Anton Maria Zanetti is a beautiful original etching and burin on laid paper, realized by the Spanish artist Joannes de Plano (active in 1770-1780), as the inscription reports aroind the oval portrait. Below image, at left the inscription: Anton: Mariae Zanetti se ipsum delineavit; below image, at right: Joannes de Plano sculpsit; below image, at center: Anton Mariae Zanetti Alexandr: f: / Artis Pictoriae, at Linguae Graecae peritiss: / Per XLII annos a publ: D. Marci Bibliotheca benemerenti / Hic dormit in Domino / Ano LXXIII Aetatis suae...

An intense portrait of the actor Harvey Keitel, 1988 ca. Good conditions.

Shot in the woods, Long Island, NY. Photos are available in a variety of print mediums. Custom size, frame and printing options are available (including dye-sublimated aluminum, fac...

Carl Martin Western Mountain Landscape Watercolor Painting c.1970 Outstanding watercolor signed Carl Martin Original watercolor on paper ...

Signed, titled, and dated. Earlie Hudnall, who is one of the most notable African American photographers living today, has extensively documented the African American neighborhood...

Portrait of an elderly man in a baseball hat by an unknown artist (20th Century). Signed and dated ("VHGE '85") in the lower right corner. No frame.

Black and white closeup glamour portrait of classic film actress Thelma Todd posed in a fur coat and wide brimmed hat. Thelma Todd was an American actress and businesswoman who carried the nicknames "The Ice Cream Blonde" and "Hot Toddy". Appearing in about 120 feature films and shorts between 1926 and 1935, she is remembered for her comedic roles opposite ZaSu Pitts...

Black and white studio capture of Marlene Dietrich posed in a fur coat. In 1920s Berlin, Dietrich performed on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola Lola in Josef v...

Morning Glory, 2016, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Based on an original Polaroid, Digital C-print, not mounted. Signed on the back and with cert...

Beautiful Ashcan School portrait of a woman in winter outerwear, 1909. Oil on canvas panel, measuring 17.75 x 18 inches; 21.75 x 22 inches framed. Original frame. Dated lower rig...

Investing in a late 20th-century Victorian-style portrait of two terrier dogs in a landscape is an opportunity to bring a touch of nostalgic charm and timeless elegance into your liv...

Portrait of Sir Charles Forbes of Edinglassie, Oil on canvas. The size of the portrait is 75 cm x 59.5 cm whilst overall the size is 106 cm x 91 cm In very good condition.There has been some restoration/overpainting etc.There is some minor craquelure. Housed in a period gilt frame decorated with acorns and leaves Overall a good portrait, circle of a fine scottish artist , with an interesting sitter, his details below. sir Charles Forbes of Edinglassie Sir Charles Forbes, 1st Baronet (1774–1849) was a Scottish politician, of Newe and Edinglassie, Aberdeenshire. Forbes was the son of the Rev. George Forbes of Lochell. He was a descendant of Alexander Forbes of Kinaldie and Pitsligo, and was in 1833 served heir male in general to Alexander Forbes, 3rd lord Forbes of Pitsligo, father of Alexander Forbes, 4th Lord Forbes of Pitsligo, attainted in 1745. Forbes was of a bluff but kindly nature, diffident as to his own merits, of a straightforward and manly character. On the death of his uncle in 1821 Forbes succeeded to the entailed estates of the Forbeses of Newe, and was created a baronet by patent in 1823.[1] He married in 1811. His daughter, Elizabeth, married General, Lord James Hay, second son of the seventh Marquess of Tweeddale. Sir Henry Raeburn FRSE, RA, RSA (1756-1823) Scottish portrait painter and Scotland's first significant portrait painter since the Union to remain based in Scotland. He served as Portrait Painter to King George IV in Scotland Raeburn had all the essential qualities of a popular and successful portrait painter. He was able to produce a telling and forcible likeness; his work is distinguished by powerful characterisation, stark realism, dramatic and unusual lighting...

A charming study of an older gentleman reading the newspaper. Signed illegibly to the lower right. Presented in a gilt frame with foliate strapwork. On canvas.

Original Lithograph - Henri Matisse - Apollinaire Artist : Henri MATISSE 13 x 10 inches Edition: 151/330 References : Duthuit-Matisse Catalogue raisonné 31 MATISSE'S BIOGRAPHY YOUTH AND EARLY EDUCATION Henri Emile Benoît Matisse was born in a tiny, tumbledown weaver's cottage on the rue du Chêne Arnaud in the textile town of Le Cateau-Cambrésis at eight o'clock in the evening on the last night of the year, 31 December 1869 (Le Cateau-Cambrésis is in the extreme north of France near the Belgian border). The house had two rooms, a beaten earth floor and a leaky roof. Matisse said long afterwards that rain fell through a hole above the bed in which he was born. Matisse’s ancestors had lived in the area for centuries before the convulsive social and industrial upheavals of the nineteenth century. Matisse grew up in a world that was still detaching itself from a way of life in some ways unchanged since Roman times. The coming of the railway had put Bohain on the industrial map, but people still traveled everywhere on foot or horseback. Matisse’s father, Émile Hippolyte Matisse, was a grain merchant whose family were weavers. His mother, Anna Heloise Gerard, was a daughter of a long line of well-to-do tanners. Warmhearted, outgoing, capable and energetic, she was small and sturdily built with the fashionable figure of the period: full breasts and hips, narrow waist, neat ankles and elegant small feet. She had fair skin, broad cheekbones and a wide smile. "My mother had a face with generous features," said her son Henri, who always spoke of her with particular tenderness of the sensitivity. Throughout the forty years of her marriage, she provided unwavering, rocklike support to her husband and her sons. Matisse later said: "My mother loved everything I did." He grew up in nearby Bohain-en-Vermandois, an industrial textile center, until the age of ten, when his father sent him to St. Quentin for lycée. Anna Heloise worked hard. She ran the section of her husband's shop that sold housepaints, making up the customers' orders and advising on color schemes. The colors evidently left a lasting impression on Henri. The artist himself later said he got his color sense from his mother, who was herself an accomplished painter on porcelain, a fashionable art form at the time. Henri was the couple’s first son. The young Matisse was an awkward youth who seemed ill-adapted to the rigors of the North; in particular, he hated the gelid winters. He was a pensive child and by his own account he was a dreamy, frail and not outstandingly bright. In later life he never lost his feeling for his native soil, for seeds and growing things he had encountered in his youth. The fancy pigeons he kept in Nice more than half a century after he left home recalled the weavers' pigeon-lofts tucked away behind even the humblest house in Bohain. Matisse's childhood memories were of a stern upbringing. "Be quick!" "Look out!" "Run along!" "Get cracking!" were the refrains that rang in his ears as a boy. In later years when survival itself depended on habits of thrift and self-denial, the artist prided himself on being a man of the North. When Matisse in turn had children of his own to bring up, he chided himself for any lapse in discipline or open display of tenderness as weakness on his part. In 1887 he went to Paris to study law, working as a court administrator in Le Cateau-Cambrésis after gaining his qualification. Although he considered law as tedious, he nonetheless passed the bar in 1888 with distinction and began his practice begrudgingly. Once Matisse finished school, his father, a much more practical man, arranged for his son to obtain a clerking position at a law office. PAINTING: BEGINNINGS Matisse’s discovery of his true profession came about in an unusual manner. Following an attack of appendicitis, he began to paint in 1889, when his mother had brought him art supplies during the period of convalescence. He said later, “From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life. I threw myself into it like a beast that plunges towards the thing it loves.” Matisse’s mother was the first to advise her son not to adhere to the “rules” of art, but rather listen to his own emotions. Matisse was so committed to his art that he later extended a warning to his fiancée, Amélie Parayre, whom he later married: “I love you dearly, mademoiselle; but I shall always love painting more.” Matisse had discovered "a kind of paradise" as he later described it. His drastic change of profession deeply disappointed his father. Two years later in 1891 Matisse returned to Paris to study art at the Académie Julian and became a student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau. After a discouraging year at the Académie Julian, he left in disgust at the overly perfectionist style of teaching there. Afterwards he trained with Gustave Moreau, an artist who nurtured more progressive leanings. In both studios, as was usual, students drew endless figure studies from life. From Bouguereau, he learned the fundamental lessons of classical painting. His one art-schooled technical standby, almost a fetish, was the plumb line. No matter how odd the angles in any Matisse, the verticals are usually dead true. Moreau was a painter who despised the "art du salon", so Matisse was destined, in a certain sense, to remain an "outcast" of the art world. He initially failed his drawing exam for admission to the École des Beaux-Arts, but persisted and was finally accepted. Matisse began painting still-lives and landscapes in the traditional Flemish style, at which he achieved reasonable proficiency. Most of his early works employ a dark palette and tend to be gloomy. Chardin was one of Matisse's most admired painters having made four the French still-life master paintings in the Louvre. Although he executed numerous copies after the old masters he also studied contemporary art. His first experimentations earned him a reputation as the rebellious member of his studio classes. In 1896, Matisse was elected as an associate member of the Société Nationale, which meant that each year he could show paintings at the Salon de la Société without having to submit them for review. In the same year he exhibited 5 paintings in the salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and the state bought two of his paintings. This was the first and almost only recognition he received in his native country during his lifetime. In 1897 and 1898, he visited the painter John Peter Russell on the island Belle Île off the coast of Brittany. Russell introduced him to Impressionism and to the work of Van Gogh who had been a good friend of Russell but was completely unknown at the time. Matisse's style changed completely, and he would later say "Russell was my teacher, and Russell explained color theory to me." Matisse also observed Russell's and other artists' stable marriages. This probably influenced him to find in Amélie Noellie Parayre, his future wife, his anchor. The Dinner Table (1897) was Matisse’s first masterpiece, and he had spent the entire winter working on the oeuvre. Though the Salon displayed the piece, they hung the work in a poor location, disgusted by what they considered its radical, Impressionist aspects. Caroline Joblaud was Matisse's early lover for four years during his initial struggles to affirm his artistic direction and professional career. Caroline (also called Camille) gave Matisse his first daughter Marguerite in 1894, who after Matisse's marriage to Amélie Noellie Parayre was warmly accepted contrary to conventional hostility such arrangements provoked. Caroline posed various times for the artist’s compositions while Marguerite served many times as a model for Matisse throughout his life. MARRIAGE WITH AMÉLIE NOELLIE PARAYRE The Matisses of Bohain and the Parayres of Beauzelle had outwardly nothing in common, and there was no reason why Matisse and Amélie should ever have met. But in October 1897 Matisse went to a wedding in Paris and happened to sit next to her at the uproarious banquet that followed. There had been no banal flirtation between them, even when the wine flowed, each recognized the other as true metal, and when they got up from the table she held out her hand to Henri Matisse in a way that he never forgot. Matisse at that time was not yet the professorial figure of legend. He was known as a prankster, as a ribald and anti-clerical songster, and as someone who had once broken up a café concert performance just for the hell of it. Amélie's relatives operated at that time within a social, intellectual, and political context of which Matisse had had no previous experience. They stood for free thinking, for the separation of church and state, and for the secularization of the French educational system. Her family, better off that that of Matisse, provided the support he needed for the budding artist. When Matisse married Amélie in January 1898, they had been introduced only three months after. Amélie's Aunt Noélie and two of her brothers ran a successful women's shop called the Grande Maison des Modes. Before her marriage, Amélie had shown a gift for designing, making, and modeling hats for a fashionable clientele. In June 1899, she found a partner and opened a shop of her own on the rue de Châteaudun. This allowed Henri and herself to live, with Marguerite, in a tiny two-room apartment on the same street. Madame Matisse, fervently loyal, would play a fundamental role in the life and career of the artist for more than 40 years. Marguerite was to become her father's lifetime mainstay In 1902 disaster struck. Amélie’s parents were disgraced and financially ruined in a spectacular scandal of national scope, as the unsuspecting employees of a woman whose financial empire was based on fraud. Thanks to his early years in a lawyer's office, Matisse was able to busy himself to great effect in the organization of his father-in-law's defense. When all about him lost their heads, burst into tears, and felt more than sorry for themselves, Henri Matisse dealt with their problems one by one. The ordeal had taken its toll, in more than one way. His doctors ordered Matisse to go to Bohain and take two months' complete rest. Amélie had lost both her hat shop and the apartment on the rue de Châteaudun. For the first time, Henri, Amélie and the three children were united in Bohain, having nowhere else to go. Hillary Spurling, one of Matisse’s biographers, asserts that Amélie’s memories of that public disgrace nurtured a “suspicion of the outside world” that would always mark the Matisse family. The Matisse family formed a kind of hermetic unit which revolved around the artist’s work and profession. They fitted their activities according his breaks and work sessions. Silence was essential. Even during the years when Matisse lived mostly alone in Nice, an annual ritual of unpacking, stretching, framing and hanging ended with the whole family settling down to respond to the paintings. The conference might last several days. Then the dealers were admitted. Matisse and his wife had had two sons, Jean (born 1899) and Pierre (born 1900). He was not always in peace with his family. He wrote that their views were not always in accord “which disturbs me considerably in my work, for which I require the most complete calm and from those how surround me, a serenity that I cannot find here. I intend to move to a village a few league away.” Pierre, his brother, Jean, and Marguerite remained close to their father through every vicissitude, and Matisse, in his last invalid years, was devoted to his several grandchildren. In 1899, at a time when his paintings displayed rebellious talent but not much clear direction, Matisse began attending classes in clay modeling and sculpture. Assigned to copy one of the sculptural masterpieces in the Louvre, he selected Jaguar Devouring a Hare a violently precise work by Antoine-Louis Barye. Later, whenever his paintings seemed stuck, he turned to sculpture to organize his thoughts and sensations. Influenced by the works of the post-Impressionists Paul Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Paul Signac, and also by Japanese art, Matisse made color a crucial element of his paintings. Matisse said, "In modern art, it is indubitably to Cézanne that I owe the most." By studying Cézanne’s fragmented planes -- which stretched the idea of the still life to a forced contemplation of color surfaces themselves -- Matisse was able to reconstruct his own philosophy of the still life. Many of his paintings from 1899 to 1905 make use of a pointillist technique adopted from Signac. In 1898, he went to London to study the paintings of J. M. W. Turner and then went on a trip to Corsica. After years in poverty, Matisse went through his "dark period" (1902-03), moved briefly to naturalism, went back to a dark palette and told friends in 1903 that he had lost all desire to paint and had almost decided to give up. Fortunately, Matisse was able to earn some money painting a frieze for the World Fair at the Grand Palais in Paris. He also traveled extensively in the early 1900s when tourism was still a new idea. Brought on by railroad, steamships, and other forms of transportation that appeared during the industrial revolution, travel became a popular pursuit. As a cultured tourist, he developed his art with regular doses of travel. FAUVISM Matisse's career can be divided into several periods that changed stylistically, but his underlying aim always remained the same: to discover "the essential character of things" and to produce an art "of balance, purity, and serenity," as he himself put it. The changing studio environments seemed always to have had a significant effect on the style of his work. In these first years of struggle Matisse set his revolutionary artistic agenda. He disregarded perspective, abolished shadows, repudiating the academic distinction between line and color. He was attempting to overturn a way of seeing evolved and accepted by the Western world for centuries by substituting a conscious subjectivity in the place of the traditional illusion of objectivity . Matisse hit his stride in the avant-garde art world in the first years of the new decade. He explored the modern art scene through frequent visits to galleries such as Durand-Ruel and Vollard, where he was exposed to work by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh. Matisse’s first solo exhibition took place in 1904, without much success. In 16 May 1905 he arrived in the charming Catalan port of Collioure, in the south of France. He soon invited the painter André Derain (1880-1954), 11 years his junior, to join him. By 1905, Matisse was considered spearhead the Fauve movement in France, characterized by its spontaneity and roughness of execution as well as use of raw color straight from the palette to the canvas. Matisse combined pointillist color and Cézanne’s way of structuring pictorial space stroke by stroke to develop Fauvism - a way less of seeing the world than of feeling it with one’s eyes. When the Fauve summer drew to an end, Derain left Collioure with 30 paintings, 20 drawings and some 50 sketches, never to return, while Matisse departed some days later bringing back to Paris 15 finished paintings, 40 aquarelles, over 100 drawings. He returned Collioure in the summers of 1906, 1907, 1911 and 1914. The lure of the sun would prove always to have powers of restoration to the artist throughout his life particularly after periods of great emotional exertion. When Fauvist works were first exhibited Salon d'Automne in Paris they created a scandal. Eyewitness accounts tell of laughter emanating from room VII where they were displayed. Gertrud Stein, one of Matisse's most important future supporters, reported that people scratched at the canvases in derision. "A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public" was the reaction by the critic Camille Mauclair. Louis Vauxcelles described the work with the historic phrase "Donatello au milieu des fauves!" (Donatello among the wild beasts), referring to a Renaissance-type sculpture that shared the room with them. His comment was printed on 17 October 1905 in Gil Blas, a daily newspaper, and passed into popular usage. Derain himself later called the Fauves' color "sticks of dynamite." The painting that was singled out for attacks was Matisse's Woman with a Hat, a portrait of Madame Matisse. This picture was bought be was bought by Gertrude and Leo Stein, a fact which had a very positive effect on Matisse who was suffering demoralization from the bad reception of his work. Matisse continued his experiments in Collioure, visible in the painting The Open Window and the View of Collioure , also a characteristic work of Fauvism in its raw color and disregard for details. Both of these works of the landscape in the French Mediterranean present a distinct development towards the spontaneous and uninhibited style. Other than André Derain, Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy and Maurice Vlaminck were also members of the Fauve movement. However, Matisse’s intimate friends among artists were mostly easygoing minor painters, such as Albert Marquet. Matisse’s temperamental aloneness made him prey to vertiginous depressions. He later recalled a breakdown that he underwent in Spain, in 1910: “My bed shook, and from my throat came a little high-pitched cry that I could not stop.” From the onset of is career women were from one of the cardinal motifs of the artist's production. His Joy of Life (1906) draws us into the world of hallucinatory vividness composed of nymphs set in an idyllic open fields dressed in pure color and sensual outline. Two women lounge in the sunlight while two more chat on the edge of the forest. One crouches to pick some flowers while her companion weaves a chain of them into her hair. A couple embraces each other while another group engages in a lively round-dance in the distance. In this way, Joy of Life depicts woodland nymphs engaging in a celebration of their life, their womanhood, and their sexuality. Due to the recurrent incidence of nude women and intensely sensual interpretation many observers have assumed that as a man Matisse must have been a hedonist. On the contrary, historic examination demonstrates that in reality, he was rather a self-abnegating Northerner who lived only to work, and did so in chronic anguish, recurrent panic, and amid periodic breakdowns. While Picasso recompensed himself, as he went along, with gratifications of intellectual and erotic play Matisse did not. In an age of ideologies, Matisse dodged all ideas except perhaps one: that art is life by other means. Matisse’s uninhibited celebration of women is often believed to have initiated from Cézanne’s painting Three Bathers (1882) (which he had acquired for himself along with a Van Gogh and a Gauguin). However, Matisse depicts women as nurturing, welcoming, and unlike the forbidding, massive clay-like presence of those of Paul Cézanne. FAME The decline of the Fauvist movement, after 1906, did nothing to deter the rise of Matisse. From 1906 -1917 he lived in Paris and established his home, studio, and school at Hôtel Biron. Among his neighbors is sculptor Auguste Rodin, writer Jean Cocteau, and dancer Isadora Duncan. Many of his finest works were created in this period, when he was an active part of the great gathering of artistic talent in Montparnasse, even though he did not quite fit in with his conservative appearance and strict bourgeois work habits. In fact, the aim of Matisse’s art was something less than revolutionary. In 1908, in a famous statement drawn from “Notes of a Painter,” Matisse declared as his ideal an art “for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.” Matisse's personal habits were incredibly regular. On a typical day rose early and worked all morning with a second work session after lunch, followed by violin practice, a simple supper (vegetable soup, two hard-boiled eggs, salad and a glass of wine) and an early bedtime. In 1906, he created a series of 12 lithographs, all variations on the theme of a seated nude. He chose to share his graphic work with the public almost immediately. The lithographs were exhibited at the Druet Gallery in Paris the same year that they were produced, and the woodcuts were shown at the Salon des Independants in the spring of 1907. In 1907 Appolinaire, commenting about Matisse in an article published in La Falange, said, "We are not here in the presence of an extravagant or an extremist undertaking: Matisse's art is eminently reasonable." Notwithstanding newly-won fame, Matisse's work continued to encounter vehement criticism and it was difficult for him to provide for his family. His controversial 1907 painting Blue Nude was burned in effigy at the Armory Show in Chicago in 1913. Contrary to the fate of the Impressionists, Matisse and other Fauves were able to exhibit in art galleries. In 1908 Paul Cassirer, the German art dealer and editor who played a significant role in the promotion of the work the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, staged an exhibit of Matisse’s works in Berlin. In the same year the American photographer Alfred Stieglitz in New York organized him one-man show in his tiny Manhattan gallery called 291 which effectively introduced Matisse the powerful American art market. In the first decade of his notoriety as the leader of the Fauves, Matisse was more admired by foreigners than by the French. It was, after all, the Russians and the Americans who acquired significant collections of his early work almost as quickly as it was created. The great Matisses we see in the Paris museums today were mostly acquired after the artist's death in lieu of death duties. It took the French a good deal longer to understand Matisse's greatness-longer, certainly, than the international cadre of aspiring talents that flocked to his classes when he was still one of the most controversial figures in the Paris avant-garde. In the summer of 1907, Matisse and his wife went on a long trip to italy "for work and Pleasure," visiting Venice and Padua, where they admired Giotto's frescos. In Florence the were the guests of the Steins in their villa in Fiesole. From this base matisse visited Arezzo, to study Piero della Francesca, and Siena, attracted by the early Sienese painters, especially, Duccio. PICASSO, GERTRUDE STEIN AND THE CONE SISTERS During the first decade of the 20th century Americans in Paris Gertrude Stein, her brothers Leo Stein, Michael Stein and Michael's wife Sarah took keen interest in Matisse's art. In addition, Gertrude Stein's two friends from Baltimore. Clarabel and Etta Cone, became major patrons of Matisse and Picasso, collecting hundreds of their works.The Cone Sisters acquired their first Matisse in 1906 and, during the next four decades, went on to form one of the world's great collections of his art. The Cone Collection not only contains major works from every phase of Matisse's long career but reflects the sisters' special interest in his Nice period, when a new complexity of form and psychology entered the ever intense surface allure of his paintings. In April of 1906 during a gathering at the house of the legendary Gertrude Stein, Matisse was introduced to Pablo Picasso who was 11 years younger. Picasso and Matisse were poles apart aesthetically and their life styles were no less so. Matisse was markedly taller and more polished than the stocky, cocky Catalan, was then ruler of the turbulent Paris avant-garde art scene. The two were said to have always been looking over their shoulders at each other. It is well-known that after their rivalry grew, sides were taken. Picasso later said: "No one has ever looked at Matisse's paintings more carefully than I; and no one has looked at mine more carefully than he." One key difference between their pictorial concepts was that Matisse drew and painted from nature, while Picasso was much more inclined to work from imagination. The subjects painted most frequently by both artists were women and still lives, with Matisse more likely to place his figures in fully realized interiors. Gertrude Stein, who loved stirring things up, wrote, "the feeling between the Picassoites and the Matisse-ites became bitter." Although Matisse dryly noted that "our disputes were always friendly," it should be pointed out that Picasso and his friends threw suction-cupped darts at Matisse's 1906 Portrait of Marguerite (which Picasso had obtained in a trade for his own Pitcher, Bowl and Lemon, from 1907). While the rift between the two artists eventually healed, the one between their supporters remained. ACADEMIE MATISSE IN PARIS & SERGEI SHCHUKIN In 1909, with the Matisse family lived in a former convent on the Boulevard des Invalides, in Paris, where the artist conducted a painting school. His immense notoriety, which had been confirmed in 1905-06 by Joy of Life, a work which seemed to trash every possible norm of pictorial order and painterly finesse.His friends organized and financed the Académie Matisse in Paris, a private and non-commercial school in which Matisse instructed young artists. It operated from 1911 until 1917. Hans Purrmann and Sarah Stein were several of his most loyal students. Although it lasted for only three years (1908-11), and yet, during its brief existence the Académie Matisse became one of the principal crossroads of modern painting for a number of gifted European and American artists. Given the reputation Matisse had acquired as the"wild man" of modernist color, it must have come as a shock to some of his early students that the program of instruction he offered was remarkably conservative. As Jean Heiberg, the first Norwegian to enroll in the Académie, later wrote in a memoir: "The school had, at Matisse's suggestion, acquired a copy of two antique sculptures from the Louvre, Mars and an archaic sculpture, which he often used to demonstrate. Every now and then he got completely rid of the life model and we only drew from the plaster casts, and his critiques then were no less profitable." Among Matisse’s students was Olga Meerson, a Russian Jew who had studied with Wassily Kandinsky in Munich and, already possessed of an elegant style, sought to remake herself under Matisse’s tutelage. Amélie suspected the worst. Perhaps a combination of Amélie’s jealousy and Meerson’s neediness caused a Matisse to end the connection, with bad feeling all around. Meerson moved to Munich, where she married the musician Heinz Pringsheim, a brother-in-law of Thomas Mann. Never having fulfilled her promise as a painter, she committed suicide in Berlin, in 1929. One of Matisse's biographers, with access to much of the artist's correspondence, contends that the artist, after his marriage, rarely, if ever, had sex with models, despite his apparent feelings for many. Two Russian art collectors stood out at the beginning of the 20th century: the cloth merchant Sergei Shchukin (1854–1936) and the textile manufacturer Ivan Morozov (1871–1921). Both acquired modern French art, developed a sensibility for spotting new trends, and publicized them in Russia. In this period, Matisse had initiated his fecund association with the Russian textile magnate and visionary collector, Sergei Shchukin. The artist created one of his major works La Danse specially for Shchukin as part of a two painting commission. Inspired by a circular dance-- perhaps a sardana - performed by fishermen at Collioure, this painting embodies the clash between the sacred and reality. Human hands link together, but they form a divine spirit. Moreover, Matisse all but abandoned perspective The work ’s flatness emphasizes the idea, colors, and material, a notion that made Matisse a model for Modernists. The other painting commissioned was Music, 1909. Shchukin was considered by some almost as a co-producer of some of the artist’s greatest works and was strongly commuted to the French painter’s work. Concerning the violent attacks on his friend, the Russian wrote to the artist: “The public is against you, but the future is yours.” By 1914 Shchukin’s house in Moscow contained thirty-seven Matisses. “He always picked the best,” the artist said. During the political revolution Lenin expropriated Shchukin collection in person but allowed Shchukin to remain, in servants’ quarters, as caretaker and guide. He died in Paris, in 1936. The collection is now in the Hermitage and Pushkin Museums From about 1911 to 1915, Matisse struggled with the ideas of Cubism, an experiment he felt he was "not participating in" because it did not "speak to [his] deeply sensory nature." MOROCCO Like many avant-garde artists in Paris, Matisse was receptive to a broad range of influences. He is one of the first painters to take an interest in various forms of “primitive” art. His art was profoundly influenced by Easter art as well. Matisse first flirted with the idea of visiting Morocco after a trip to the Moorish part of Spain in the winter of 1910. This taste of the Moors incited a flame of hope that there would be greater inspiration to paint in Morocco. Furthermore, well aware of the exotic subjects in Morocco that had engendered a wealth of inspiration for the famous French painter Delacroix when he visited the country over eighty years before, Matisse felt Morocco would stimulate his painting genius in ways Europe could not. He strove for neither the picturesque nor the pornographic. In Morocco, Matisse seems to have had difficulties finding models who would pose for him, particularly women because of the law of the veil. Only Jewesses and prostitutes were exempt. Luckily, Matisse to have found the prostitute Zorah for the purpose although he did not paint her as a prostitute. Instead, in his first picture of her, Zorah en Jaune, sexual themes are most conspicuously absent from the canvas. As a prostitute used to exposing and flaunting her body, Zorah could have easily been painted nude or with less clothing to show herself off, but instead Matisse chooses to keep her clothed and posed with prudence. Unlike the primitive, nude Western women in the Fauve Joy of Life. Moroccan Zorah is clothed with respect and detail to her finer characteristics. He is developing his ability to paint with awareness of the non-sexual qualities of his subject, a movement away from Fauve women. Many of Matisse's Moroccan paintings are covered only in the thinnest washes of pigment, as if he wanted the texture of the unpainted canvas to show through so that it would add rawness to the browns and grays. Matisse's odalisques have been described as "elaborate fictions" in which the artist re-created the image of the Islamic harem using French models posed in his Nice apartment. The fabrics, screens, carpets, furnishings and costuming recalled the exoticism of the "Orient" and provided a theme for Matisse's preoccupation with the figure and elaborate patterns of exotic fabrics. Although Matisse's interest in textiles are evident in his compositions made during his 1906 trip to Morocco, it didn't begin as a typical European attraction to the exotic. It was already present to him as a descendent of generations of weavers, who was raised among weavers in Bohain-en-Vermandois, which in the 1880's and 90's was a center of production of fancy silks for the Parisian fashion houses. Like virtually all his northern compatriots, he had an inborn appreciation of their texture and design. He understood the properties of weight and hang, he knew how to use pins and paper patterns, and he was supremely confident with scissors. Matisse was known to be an avid collector of fabrics, from his days as a poor art student in Paris to the latter years of his life, when his Nice studio overflowed with Persian carpets, delicate Arab embroideries, richly hued African wall hangings, and any number of colorful cushions, curtains, costumes, patterned screens, and backcloths. Textiles soon became the springboard for his radical experiments with perspective and an art based on decorative patterning and pure harmonies of color and line. When he moved house, he also moved his fabrics, describing them as "my working library." He added to the collection all his life, from markets in Algeria, Morocco and Tahiti to the end-of-season sales of Parisian haute couture. The revitalizing spirit of Morocco would live on in the artist's imagination until the cutouts of the artist's last years. AFTER PARIS Matisse continued to evolve in unexpected directions even though never became an abstract painter (though some of his most adventurous works, such as the View of Notre Dame of 1914 or the Yellow Curtain of 1916 come close). His motifs were always recognizable, and the tension between the subject and the formal aspects of the painting was a central concept of his artistic ideal. Matisse moved to Nice in 1917 to distance himself from wartime activity, where bright, warm colors showed him "simpler venues which won’t stifle the spirit." His spirit became loyal to the "silver clarity of light" in Nice, and he returned to Paris only for a few months each summer. The years 1917–30 are known as his early Nice period, when his principal subject remained the female figure or an odalisque dressed in oriental costume or in various stages of undress, depicted as standing, seated, or reclining in a luxurious, exotic interior of Matisse's own creation. These paintings are infused with southern light, bright colors, and a profusion of decorative patterns. They emanate the atmosphere suggestive of a harem. In 1929, Matisse temporarily suspended easel painting and traveled to America to sit on the jury of the 29th Carnegie International and, in 1930, spent some time in Tahiti and New York as well as Baltimore, Maryland and Merion, Pennsylvania.He was especially thrilled with New York. An important collector of modern art, and owner of the largest Matisse holdings in America, Dr. Albert Barnes of Merion, commissioned the artist to paint a large mural for the two-story picture gallery of his mansion. Matisse chose the subject of the dance, a theme that had preoccupied him since his early Fauve masterpiece Joy of Life. Americans were prominent among Matisse's patrons throughout his career, beginning with the Steins (Leo Stein bought Joy of Life right out of the Salon in 1906) and including the Cone sisters of Baltimore and the notoriously cantankerous Barnes. The foundational Matisse monograph was written during his lifetime by another American, Alfred Barr. Also important in promoting Matisse's presence before the transatlantic public was the Manhattan gallery founded in 1931 by the artist's son, Pierre, who remained a prominent figure in the New York art world for almost six decades. In addition to his father, he represented Balthus, Calder, Dubuffet, Giacometti, Miro, Tanguy and others, many of them also friends. Throughout his long and productive career, Matisse periodically refreshed his creative energies by turning from painting to drawing, sculpture and other forms of artistic expression. In his lifetime he also produced 12 illustrated books which were known as “livre d’artiste” (artist’s book), a specific type of illustrated book that became common in France around the turn of the century. These books were deluxe, limited editions, meant to be collected and admired as works of art, as well as, read. This process began when Swiss publisher Albert Skira first approached the modern master in 1930 to illustrate the work, Poesies, by 19th century French symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé . Matisse responded to Skira’s invitation with great enthusiasm and that summer, devoted most of his attention to the commission while he was residing in Paris. The result was a collection of 29 beautiful etchings, of which the Museum will display 16. The subject matter, like the poems themselves, varies considerably, although many of the images reflect the artist’s vacation to the South Pacific. Matisse’s etchings of Mallarmé’s poems are considered among his greatest works in the print medium. In 1941, again for Skira, Matisse began one of his most complicated and successful printmaking projects, Florilege des Amours de Ronsard, illustrating the love poems of 16th century French Renaissance poet Pierre de Ronsard. Ronsard’s subject and strong imagery lent themselves gracefully to Matisse’s favored themes of fruits, flowers, the female form and portraits. The artist selected the poems himself and translated the work from Renaissance French to contemporary French for the publication of the anthology DIVORCE & LATE FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS For all his long-lasting friendships with other artists, famous and obscure, Matisse's days and nights were absorbed by solitary labor. Playing the violin seemed a more intimate consolation for decades of critical abuse than the affections of his wife and children. Although their marriage was still somewhat fragile, the Matisses had decided to stay on in Nice when their lease expired at Place Charles-Félix in the summer of 1938. Matisse and his wife were separated in 1939 after 41 years when Amélie tried to dismiss the coolly efficient young Lydia Delectorskaya, an orphan refugee from Siberia, who had been hired as Amélie’s companion. However, the Matisses’ marriage ran afoul not of any romantic rival but for the artist’s wish to stand on his own. The first climax came years before in 1913, when Amélie sat more than a hundred times for the Portrait of Madame Matisse. A friend’s diary reported at the time. “Crazy! weeping! By night he recites the Lord’s Prayer! By day he quarrels with his wife!” The portrait, which was the last work to enter Shchukin’s collection, caused Matisse “palpitations, high blood pressure and a constant drumming in his ears.” Such frenzy was not rare when Matisse had difficulty with a painting. He referred to the painting years later in a letter to her as “the one that made you cry, but in which you look so pretty.” Amélie ceded routine leadership of the family to Marguerite. The 1913 portrait was his last painting of her. Matisse and his wife met the last time to discuss details of their legal separation, in July 1939. One of its key provisions was that everything would be divided equally between the couple. The meeting took place in Paris at the Gare St. Lazare and lasted thirty minutes, during which Amélie Matisse kept up a flow of small talk while her husband."My wife never looked at me, but I didn't take my eyes off her...," Matisse wrote on the night of that final encounter: "I couldn't get a word out.... I remained as if carved out of wood, swearing never to be caught that way again." "I'm going to try to isolate myself as if I were still absent,'' Matisse announced on his first return to Paris since the official separation from his wife, 'rarely leaving his apartment except for visits to the cinema (his first color film, starring Danny Kaye, was a revelation).'' After her dismissal, Delectorskaya shot herself in the chest with a pistol, remarkably with only a slight effect. Soon after the artist and his wife were legally separated Delectorskaya was back. She arrived with a bouquet of white daisies and blue cornflowers from her Aunt’s garden on July 15th, St Henry’s Day. Their working collaboration was to last right up to Matisse’s death in 1954. Her will throughout was indomitable; she typed, kept records and meticulous accounts and paid the household bills. She also organized Matisse’s correspondence and coordinated his business affairs with an iron grip as well as being his studio assistant and muse. And when called upon, even scoured the countryside on her bike for provisions during the war. Matisse claimed that his entire household came to a standstill in her absence which, in the light of what Lydia accomplished is anything, if not an understatement. In the face of the family’s icy resentment, the Russian said of Matisse, “He knew how to take possession of people and make them feel they were indispensable. That was how it was for me, and that was how it had been for Mme. Matisse.” Life with Matisse must have been taxing but it had been Amélie’s chosen vocation, through years of their studio-centered homes. Her central role in the artist's life was security, which Shchukin’s patronage provided, along with a sizable house in Issy-les-Moulineaux, where the family moved in 1909. However, in this period Matisse was increasingly absent. In 1930, his travels took him to the United States, where he was thrilled by New York, and to Tahiti. Matisse found that Tahiti was "both superb and boring . . . There the weather is beautiful at sunrise and it does not change until night. Such immutable happiness is tiring." He dived off the reefs and never forgot the colors of the madrepores and the absinthe-green water; these appear in cut-outs like Polynesia, 1946, or The Bird and the Shark, 1947, as images of a spectacular and, on the whole, beneficent nature. In September of 1940 he employed a temporary stand-in for his regular night nurse...

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