French artist, Henri Matisse, one of the most influential figures of 20th century art.
Henri Matisse reportedly once said: “Creativity takes courage.” Luckily, this was something he had in abundance, and he created daring, innovative, and, at times, shocking artwork throughout his life, frequently scandalising the establishment. Now, he is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential artists of the 20th century.
Indeed, Matisse’s work remains firmly popular at auction more than 70 years after his death. Primarily considered a painter, Matisse was also a talented draughtsman, sculptor and printmaker. Prints, in fact, account for 80% of his work sold at auction, with the majority selling for between £1,000 and £5,000, with many fetching higher prices.
Matisse had a long and prolific career, but his personal life was far from simple. Read on to discover seven things you might not have known about Henri Matisse.
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He Didn’t Plan To Be An Artist
Henri Matisse was born on New Year’s Eve 1869 to a middle-class family. As a young man, he studied law in Paris and then worked for a while as a clerk in a law office, though by all accounts he found the work unfulfilling. In 1889, when he was just 20 years old, he contracted severe appendicitis and had to spend several weeks at home recovering. During his convalescence, his mother brought him some art supplies to keep him entertained, and from that moment, he was hooked, later claiming “I knew this was my life. I threw myself into it like a beast that plunges towards the thing it loves.”
His Most Expensive Print Sold For Over £2.74 million
Océanie, Le Ciel is one of two screenprints on linen which Matisse created in the mid-1940s. Designed as wall-hangings, the artworks were inspired by Matisse’s trip to Tahiti in 1930; although he was initially disappointed by the island, over time, his impressions of it fermented and matured, and they ended up providing him with the inspiration for Océanie, Le Ciel and Océanie, La Mer. As the artist said at the time, “The memories of my voyage to Tahiti have only now returned to me, 15 years later, in the form of obsessive images.”
The prints were among Matisse’s earliest experiments in using his cut-out technique to create large-scale artworks, and they both remain hugely popular in today’s market; Océanie, Le Ciel set a new record for the artist when it was sold by Christie’s in April 2022 for £2,742,092, more than £1.2 million above its top estimate.
Océanie, Le Ciel sold by Christie’s in 2022
He Reworked His Ideas
Matisse tended to return to and rework different ideas, themes, and images throughout his career, often across different mediums. One prominent example of this is his dancing motif; one of his most famous paintings, La Danse, was made in 1910, and the androgynous dancing figures were reinterpreted for the enormous mural he made more than 20 years later for the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. This, in turn, became a print in 1935-36, and it remains popular at auction nearly ninety years on.
He Was Inspired By Trips Abroad
It was not only Matisse’s voyage to Tahiti which provided him with inspiration for his artwork; as a young man, he went to London to study the works of J.M.W. Turner and then went on to Corsica, and in the early 20th century, he travelled to Italy, Spain, Germany, and North Africa. All of these experiences had a profound effect on the artist and his work. Two trips to Morocco in 1912 and 1913 were particularly influential, as they led Matisse to create a series of artworks featuring odalisques. One of these, Grande Odalisque à la Culotte Bayadère, is a print from 1925 which is regularly among Matisse’s most popular prints at auction to this day.
Matisse in Tahiti
He Stayed In Vichy France
When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, Matisse decided to remain in Nice, where he’d mostly been living since 1917. He explained his decision to one of his sons by writing that if he left, he would feel as if he were deserting, posing the question: “If everyone who has any value leaves France, what remains of France?”
He Had A “Second Life”
In 1941, Matisse was diagnosed with abdominal cancer, and he had to undergo urgent surgery to try and save his life. Though the surgery was successful, he experienced complications and almost died, and he was left with very limited mobility, becoming reliant on a wheelchair. This meant he could no longer sculpt or paint as he once had, but rather than brooding on his physical frailty, Matisse was grateful that he’d survived at all.
He later claimed he had not expected to recover, and so he considered that he was “living on borrowed time.” He said: “Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way… I completely forget my physical suffering and all the unpleasantness of my present condition and I think only of the joy of seeing the sun rise once more and of being able to work a little bit, even under difficult conditions.”
Matisse in his wheelchair surrounded by Cut Outs
And He Began Making Cut Outs
No longer able to paint and sculpt as before, Matisse instead developed a new artistic practice of creating collages from colourful paper cut-outs. He called this process “drawing with scissors”, and his cut-outs are now among his best-known and most-loved work. Jazz was one of his earliest experiments with the technique, and his two Océanie prints were precursors to the ambitious, large-scale pieces he produced in the final years of his life, which were marked by an intense fervour of creativity.
