Matisse’s Surprises, with John Walsh

In a series of four lectures, art historian John Walsh looks at the sixty-year career of Henri Matisse (1869-1954), perhaps the most widely admired of all modernists. With Matisse, one astonishing phase follows another, decade by decade: conservative realism; then jolting, dazzling color; then ambitious variations on cubism; then intimate interiors, some with odalisques; then large-scale decorations. Matisse remained a figurative artist in all media. He was never more surprising than in his last decade when, as a semi-invalid, he took on major projects of design, from paper cutouts to large murals and stained glass.

Books (in English, in print or available from online used booksellers):

Dorthe Aagesen and Rebecca Rabinow (eds), Matisse: In Search of True Painting (exhibition catalogue, Paris, Centre Pompidou; Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen; and New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012-13)

Dita Amory and Ann Dumas, Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism (exhibition catalogue, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, 2023-24)

Matthew Affron, Cécile Debray, and Claudine Grammont (eds), Matisse in the 1930s (exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie; and Nice, Musée Matisse, 2022-23)

Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Matisse: His Art and his Public (New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1951, 2nd ed.,1974)

Olivier Berggruen and Max Hollein (eds) Henri Matisse—Drawing with Scissors, Masterpieces from the Late Years (exhibition catalogue, Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle; and Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Sammlung Berggruen, Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, 2002-03)

John Bidwell, Graphic Passion: Matisse and the Book Arts (exhibition catalogue, New York, The Morgan Library and Museum; Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015)

Yve-Alain Bois, Matisse and Picasso (accompanied the exhibition Matisse and Picasso: A Gentle Rivalry, Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, 1999; Paris, Flammarion, 1999)

----------, Karen Butler, Claudine Grammont, Barbara A. Buckley, Jennifer Mass, and Thomas Primeau, Matisse in the Barnes Foundation (3 vol, New York, Thames & Hudson, 2016)

Elizabeth Cowling, John Golding, Anne Baldassari, Isabella Monod-Fontaine, John Elderfield, and Kirk Varnedoe, Matisse Picasso (exhibition catalogue, London, Tate Modern; Paris, Grand Palais; and New York, Museum of Modern Art, 2002-03)

Stephanie d’Alessandro and John Elderfield, Matisse: Radical Invention 1913-1917 (exhibition catalogue, Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, and New York, Museum of Modern Art, 2010)

John Elderfield, Henri Matisse, a Retrospective (New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1992)

-------, Henri Matisse, Masterworks from the Museum of Modern Art (New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1996)

John Elderfield and Magdalena Dabrowski, The Drawings of Henri Matisse (exhibition catalogue, London, Hayward Gallery; and New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1984-85)

Jack Flam, Matisse on Art (Rev. ed., Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press,1995)

--------, Matisse in the Cone Collection: The Poetics of Vision (Baltimore Museum of Art, 2013)

John Jacobus, Matisse (Rev. ed., New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1983)

Dorothy Kosinski, Jay McKean Fisher, and Steven Nash, Matisse: Painter as Sculptor (exhibition catalogue, Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art and Nasher Sculpture Center; San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Baltimore, Baltimore Museum of Art, 2007-08

Hilary Spurling, Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse; The Unknown Matisse, The Early Years, 1869-1908 (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1999)

--------, Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse; Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954 (Knopf, 2005)

Ann Temkin and Dorthe Aagesen, Matisse: The Red Studio (exhibition catalogue, New York, Museum of Modern Art; and Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, 2022-23)

Websites for major Matisse collections:

Museum of Modern Art, New York: moma.org
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: metmuseum.org
Baltimore Museum of Art (Cone Collection): artbma.org
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia: barnesfoundation.org
Philadelphia Museum of Art: philamuseum.org
National Gallery of Art, Washington: nga.gov
Centre Pompidou, Paris: centrepompidou.fr 
Musée Matisse, Nice: musee-matisse-nice.org
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen: smk.dk
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg: hermitagemuseum.org
Pushkin Museum, Moscow: pushkinmuseum.art

Videos:

Henri Matisse: A Cut Above the Rest (2013-14, about the cutouts, BBC 30 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4NHDpaQW9s

Henri Matisse’s The Red Studio: The Journey of a Painting (2022, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 8 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDYlSLWAjQs

Chatting with Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview (2013, Tyler Green and Serge Guilbaud, Getty Research Institute, 1hr23 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOgrH9PxjCs

Matisse: For Me It’s Always New (2017, lecture by Katie Hanson, MFA Boston, 1hr 29 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7D08Qj3MvY