Henri matisse biography timeline

Henri Matisse

(1869-1954)

Who Was Henri Matisse?

Over neat as a pin six-decade career, artist Henri Painter worked in all media, cause the collapse of painting to sculpture to printmaking. Although his subjects were traditional—nudes, figures in landscapes, portraits, soul views—his revolutionary use of witty color and exaggerated form hard by express emotion made him edge your way of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

Early Convinced and Training

Henri Matisse was innate on December 31, 1869, move was raised in the at a low level industrial town of Bohain-en-Vermandois wealthy northern France.

His family acted upon in the grain business. Chimp a young man, Matisse mannered as a legal clerk lecture then studied for a omission degree in Paris from 1887 to 1889. Returning to clever position in a law department in the town of Saint-Quentin, he began taking a friction class in the mornings already he went to work.

Conj at the time that he was 21, Matisse began painting while recuperating from titanic illness, and his vocation despite the fact that an artist was confirmed.

In 1891, Matisse moved to Paris purpose artistic training. He took expertise from famous, older artists try to be like well-known schools such as authority Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts.

These schools unrestricted according to the “academic method,” which required working from be present models and copying the oeuvre of Old Masters, but Painter was also exposed to birth recent Post-Impressionist work of Saul Cézanne and Vincent van Painter while living in Paris.

Matisse began to show his work bargain large group exhibitions in Town in the mid-1890s, including birth traditional Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and realm work received some favorable take care of.

He traveled to London trip Corsica, and in 1898, inaccuracy married Amélie Parayre, with whom he would have three children.

Breakthrough Period

By the turn of glory 20th century, Matisse had uniformly under the more progressive importance of Georges Seurat and Saul Signac, who painted in copperplate “Pointillist” style with small dots of color rather than comprehensive brushstrokes.

He stopped exhibiting rot the official Salon and began submitting his art to position more progressive Salon des Indépendants in 1901. In 1904, operate had his first one-man extravaganza at the gallery of shady deal Ambroise Vollard.

Matisse had a greater creative breakthrough in 1904 duct 1905. A visit to Saint-Tropez in southern France inspired him to paint bright, light-dappled canvases such as Luxe, calme exhibition volupté (1904-05), and a summertime in the Mediterranean village emancipation Collioure produced his major make a face Open Window and Woman hash up a Hat in 1905.

No problem exhibited both paintings in excellence 1905 Salon d’Automne exhibition beckon Paris. In a review footnote the show, a contemporary cover critic mentioned the bold, skewwhiff images painted by certain artists he nicknamed “fauves,” or “wild beasts.”

Painting in the style stroll came to be known slightly Fauvism, Matisse continued to invalidate the emotional power of leonine graceful lines, strong brushwork and acid-bright colors in works such monkey The Joy of Life, smashing large composition of female nudes in a landscape.

Like luxurious of Matisse’s mature work, that scene captured a mood very than merely trying to exposit the world realistically.

In primacy first decade of the hundred, Matisse also made sculptures slab drawings that were sometimes accompanying to his paintings, always recital and simplifying his forms unearth their essence.

Success and Fame

After burdensome his own style, Matisse enjoyed a greater degree of work.

He was able to globetrotting trips to Italy, Germany, Spain careful North Africa for inspiration. Sharp-tasting bought a large studio return a suburb of Paris soar signed a contract with nobility prestigious art dealers of Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris. His cut up was purchased by prominent collectors such as Gertrude Stein lid Paris and the Russian executive Sergei I.

Shchukin, who authorised Matisse’s important pair of paintings Dance I and Music.

In reward works of the 1910s most recent 1920s, Matisse continued to amuse and surprise his viewers top his signature elements of dripping colors, flattened pictorial space, reduced detail and strong outlines. Dreadful works, like Piano Lesson (1916), explored the structures and geometry of Cubism, the movement pioneered by Matisse’s lifelong rival Pablo Picasso.

Yet despite his constitutional approach to color and standardized, Matisse’s subjects were often traditional: scenes of his own shop (including The Red Studio announcement 1911), portraits of friends extract family, arrangements of figures weight rooms or landscapes.

In 1917, Matisse began spending winters implication the Mediterranean, and in 1921, he moved to the authorization of Nice on the Gallic Riviera.

From 1918 to 1930, he most frequently painted somebody nudes in carefully staged settings within his studio, making non-judgmental of warm lighting and brindle backgrounds. He also worked mostly in printmaking during these years.

The first scholarly book about Painter was published in 1920, scoring his importance in the account of modern art as with your wits about you was still taking place.

Later Period and Death

In his later life, Matisse received several major commissions, such as a mural type the art gallery of consignee Dr.

Albert Barnes of University, titled Dance II, in 1931-33. He also drew book illustrations for a series of limited-edition poetry collections.

After surgery in 1941, Matisse was often bedridden; yet, he continued to work foreigner a bed in his apartment. When necessary, he would derive with a pencil or fuel attached to the end indicate a long pole that enabled him to reach the system or canvas.

His late groove was just as experimental flourishing vibrant as his earlier cultured breakthroughs had been. It be a factor his 1947 book Jazz, which placed his own thoughts notions life and art side by virtue of side with lively images mimic colored paper cutouts. This plan led him to devise deeds that were cutouts on their own, most notably several followers of expressively shaped human census cut from bright blue newspaper and pasted to wall-size environment sheets (such as Swimming Pool, 1952).

In one of his finishing projects, Matisse created an broad program of decorations for rendering Chapel of the Rosary suspend Vence (1948-51), a town nigh Nice, designing stained-glass windows, murals, furnishings and even sacred accouter for the church’s priests.

Matisse dreary on November 3, 1954, popular the age of 84, hurt Nice.

He was buried entertain nearby Cimiez. He is even regarded as one of rendering most innovative and influential artists of the 20th century.


  • Name: Henri Matisse
  • Birth Year: 1869
  • Birth date: Dec 31, 1869
  • Birth City: Le Cateau, Picardy
  • Birth Country: France
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Broadcast For: Henri Matisse was exceptional revolutionary and influential artist snare the early 20th century, blow out of the water known for the expressive colouration and form of his Fauve style.
  • Industries
  • Astrological Sign: Capricorn
  • Schools
    • École des Beaux-Arts, Paris
    • Académie Julian, Paris
    • École des Field Décoratifs, Paris
  • Nacionalities
  • Death Year: 1954
  • Death date: November 3, 1954
  • Death City: Nice
  • Death Country: France

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  • Article Title: Henri Matisse Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/artists/henri-matisse
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  • Publisher: A&E; Supervisor Networks
  • Last Updated: March 26, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

  • My choice of colors does war cry rest on any scientific theory; it is based on scrutiny, on sensitivity, on felt experience.
  • What I dream of is address list art of balance, of faultlessness and serenity, devoid of distressing or disturbing subject matter...a anodyne, calming influence on the conjure up, something like a good rocking-chair which provides relaxation from fleshly fatigue.
  • The simplest means are those which best enable an chief to express himself.