Henri Matisse, Still life with a sleeper, 1939-1940
© Estate of H. Matisse

We thought we had seen everything, read everything, said everything about Matisse, so much so that it seemed difficult or even impossible to imagine the Fauve trying to reinvent himself... in vain? Yet this is indeed the theme of this masterful exhibition illuminating the dark side of a genius of color who knew, at the dawn of the 1930s, how to evolve his style towards light and pure form. At the end of 1929, the artist was 60 years old and like the world: in crisis. Cold with his easel, Matisse hardly paints anymore, sometimes draws, gradually sinking into deep disarray. This period of intense doubt takes him from the United States to Tahiti and forces him to reinvent himself at all costs. Thanks to priceless loans like the Grand Nude Reclining, a pre-pop revelation coming directly from Baltimore, the Matisse Museum retraces this decade of rupture during which the master pushed his art to its climax. reflection on the decor. Here, his Nice interiors dialogue with his precious odalisques, while his large formats inspired by the Mallarmean universe bear witness to the revival of Fauvism in his practice. Finally, his drawings and preparatory studies around Dance allow us to follow the genesis and development of a masterpiece of modern art in perpetual motion.

MATISSE MUSEUM
Until September 24, 2023
164 BC des Arènes de Cimiez, 06000 Nice