Henri Matisse Biography Quotes 32 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Henri Matisse was born on December 31, 1869, in Le Cateau-Cambresis in northern France and grew up in the nearby town of Bohain-en-Vermandois. He initially prepared for a legal career, working as a law clerk in Saint-Quentin. In 1890, after an attack of appendicitis, his mother brought him a box of paints to occupy his convalescence. The experience transformed his ambitions, and in 1891 he moved to Paris to study art. He enrolled briefly at the Academie Julian and then entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where Gustave Moreau encouraged him to pursue a personal vision rather than academic convention. Matisse spent long hours copying paintings in the Louvre and formed friendships with fellow students including Albert Marquet and Henri Manguin. Early influences ranged from Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin to the Impressionists, whose handling of light and color he studied with increasing intensity.

Experimentation and the Road to Fauvism
Around the turn of the century, Matisse explored Neo-Impressionism and Divisionism after contact with Paul Signac, whose theory of color pushed him toward more luminous, constructed palettes. This experimentation culminated in Luxe, Calme et Volupte (1904). In 1905, he worked with Andre Derain in Collioure on the Mediterranean coast, producing audacious canvases such as The Open Window and Woman with a Hat. Shown at the 1905 Salon d'Automne alongside works by Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck, these paintings provoked critic Louis Vauxcelles to label the group les fauves, the wild beasts. The Steins in Paris, notably Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo Stein, recognized the power of his color and purchased Woman with a Hat, helping to launch his reputation. Ambroise Vollard gave him an early solo exhibition, reinforcing his standing in the avant-garde.

Patrons, Dealers, and International Recognition
By 1909 Matisse was associated with the Bernheim-Jeune gallery, and his circle of collectors widened. The Moscow industrialist Sergei Shchukin acquired many key works and commissioned large panels, La Danse and La Musique (1909, 1910), which became touchstones of modern art. Matisse visited Moscow in 1911 and studied icons and Shchukin's collection, experiences that deepened his engagement with bold color and flat planes. Some of his most celebrated paintings date from these years: Blue Nude (Souvenir of Biskra), Harmony in Red (The Red Room), The Red Studio, and the evolving series Bathers by a River. He worked in sculpture as well, notably the Back reliefs, pursuing themes of simplified form and structural rhythm. In Paris he was often in dialogue and rivalry with Pablo Picasso, a relationship sustained by mutual respect and debate at gatherings hosted by Gertrude Stein and other supporters.

Travel and Transition
Travel fed Matisse's imagination. A 1910 trip to Spain and extended stays in North Africa, particularly Morocco in 1912, 1913, sharpened his sensitivity to pattern, ornament, and the intensity of Mediterranean light. After the disruptions of World War I, he settled in Nice in 1917, beginning the so-called Nice period. Interior scenes bathed in soft light, sensuous figures, and odalisques took center stage. He cultivated an atmosphere of quietude and refinement, working with dedicated models such as Henriette, and he treated textiles, screens, and windows as instruments for orchestrating space and color.

Teaching, Family, and Studio Life
From 1908 to 1911 Matisse ran the Academie Matisse in Paris, attracting an international cohort that included Hans Purrmann and Max Weber. His private life, while discreet, intersected with his art. In 1898 he married Amelie Noellie Parayre. They raised three children: Marguerite, his daughter from an earlier relationship with Caroline Joblau, and two sons with Amelie, Jean and Pierre. In the 1930s, the Russian-born Lydia Delectorskaya became his assistant, model, and studio manager, crucial to the organization of his increasingly ambitious projects. Matisse and Amelie separated late in the 1930s and later divorced, while remaining connected through family and the shared history of his career.

Commissions, America, and the 1930s
The 1930s were marked by new horizons. Matisse traveled to Tahiti in 1930, absorbing the clarity of tropical light, which later informed his approach to flat color and silhouette. That same year Dr. Albert C. Barnes commissioned a monumental mural, The Dance, for the Barnes Foundation near Philadelphia. Matisse worked through complex design problems to integrate the composition with the architecture, and the final installation in 1933 stands as one of his great achievements in scale and economy. His son Pierre Matisse established a gallery in New York and promoted European modernists, helping expand Henri Matisse's audience in the United States.

War, Illness, and the Cut-Outs
In 1941 Matisse underwent major surgery for cancer, which left him with limited mobility. He called the years that followed his second life. Working from a wheelchair or bed, he developed the cut-outs (gouaches decoupees), painting sheets of paper with vibrant color and cutting them into shapes that he arranged into compositions. With the assistance of Lydia Delectorskaya and others, he produced Jazz (published by Teriade in 1947), a book of brilliantly colored plates paired with his handwritten reflections. During World War II he remained in the south of France, first in Nice and then in Vence. His daughter Marguerite took part in Resistance activities and survived arrest and torture, a harrowing episode that touched him deeply. From 1947 to 1951 he designed the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, working closely with Sister Jacques-Marie. He conceived the stained glass, murals, vestments, and even aspects of the architecture, uniting decades of exploration in color and line into a spiritual environment. Late cut-outs such as Blue Nudes, The Snail, and The Swimming Pool distilled his art to its essentials.

Legacy
Henri Matisse died in Nice on November 3, 1954, and was buried in Cimiez. Throughout his career he navigated tradition and innovation, balancing decorative richness with structural clarity. Friends, rivals, and patrons shaped his path: encouragement from Gustave Moreau, exchanges with Paul Signac, the fierce yet fruitful rivalry with Pablo Picasso, the early support of Gertrude and Leo Stein, the collecting zeal of Sergei Shchukin, and the steady assistance of Lydia Delectorskaya. His oeuvre, painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, and the radiant cut-outs, redefined the possibilities of color, line, and space. He influenced generations of artists and remains a central figure in the story of modern art, as present in the serenity of his Nice interiors as in the exuberant silhouettes of his final years.

Our collection contains 32 quotes who is written by Henri, under the main topics: Truth - Music - Love - Learning - Art.

Other people realated to Henri: Gertrude Stein (Author), Louis Aragon (Poet), Henri Cartier-Bresson (Photographer), Yves Saint Laurent (Designer), Pierre Bonnard (Artist), Edward Steichen (Photographer), Clive Bell (Critic), William S. Paley (Businessman), Dick Bruna (Artist), Albert Barnes (Theologian)

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