Henri Matisse — À propos — Slash Paris

From the Chapelle de Vence to his earliest portraits, Henri Matisse’s (1869–1954) oeuvre unfolds as an uninterrupted quest for harmony between art, spirituality, and the joy of living. In his final years, the technique of cut-out gouaches marked the culmination of a visual language of sovereign simplicity, where color becomes pure emotion and form, a sign. A painter of both light and silence, Matisse continuously refined his art toward ever more radical clarity and balance. Before reaching this plenitude, he established himself at the turn of the 20th century as the leader of Fauvism, a revolution of color and pictorial freedom. Trained in Paris after abandoning a career in law, the artist, born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, mastered painting, sculpture, drawing, and printmaking alike, leaving modernity one of the most luminous and fertile artistic universes of the century.
His legacy extends to numerous contemporary artists, from David Hockney to Ellsworth Kelly, from Mickalene Thomas to Tabaimo, who, each in their own way, continue his exploration of color, composition, the body, and space, attesting to the enduring vitality of his influence.