Henri Matisse, le laboratoire intérieur

Throughout the artist’s life (1869–1954), drawing has been a core discipline for Henri Matisse, for which he used a wide range of media (pencil, charcoal and stump, pen and ink, quill and brush …) and supports (sheets from sketchpads, margins of letters, or fine arts paper). This continuous practice in the privacy of his studio was the laboratory for his work as a painter and for his sculpture—Matisse often compared himself to a juggler or to an acrobat, daily maintaining the flexibility of his work instrument. Matisse’s drawings surround, precede, accompany and extend other artistic forms in his oeuvre and reveal themselves as independent constellations.

The exhibition illustrates the main moments in this artistic journey, arranged in 14 thematic and chronological sequences: from the apprenticeship years at the very start of the 20th century, through the studies for the chapel of the Rosary in Vence (1948–49), the final masterpiece and culmination of an entire lifetime for Matisse.

The suggested path identifies the pivotal points in Matisse’s approach to drawing—from the black of ink or pencil to the modulated white of paper, from the softness of smudged shadows to the light emanating from the final brush drawings, in relation to his experiments with colour in his painting or his work on volume in his sculptures. In the exhibition, each room offers a dialogue between drawings and paintings, etchings and sculptures, with works echoing each other and restoring something of the atmosphere of his various studios: Quai Saint Michel, in Paris from 1894, Issy-les-Moulineaux from 1909, Nice from 1918 until his death in 1954, with the exception of 1943–48 which Matisse spent in Vence.