Henri Matisse: A Retrospective

by John Elderfield

Surveys Matisse's life and career, and shows examples of paintings, drawings, and sculpture from each period.

Published in conjunction with the exhibition "Henry Matisse: A retrospective" at the Museum of Modern Art, New York , September 14, 1992 - January 12, 1993.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Art and Photography

480 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1992

Reviews

[Authentikate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this beautiful book in 1992 and have dipped in and out of it over the years. This time, I decided to study the changes in Matisse’s art over the years. It’s difficult to go slow over each plate, but this time I managed.

The book opens with a fulsome discussion of Matisse: his evolution of style; the inevitable comparisons with Picasso; and a “both sides” discussion about whether Matisse should be considered “modern art” or if—after his Fauvist years—he became “decorative.”

Matisse’s early work resembles still life art of the time (late 1800’s early 1900’s). Mostly self-taught, his talent—even from the beginning—was apparent. A bit later, Cezanne’s influence shows.

He would develop the style that made him famous, around 1905-1907; the raucous color pallets dubbed “fauvism” or “wild beasts” (the colors were, in fact, very wild and beastly for the time). During this period, Matisse allowed color to be untethered from reality. Doing so, the color more aptly conveyed his emotional response to the subject he was paining.

The book continues with his experimentation with color: divisionism. Here the scene is conveyed with dots or slashes of unblended color.

The book next shows Matisse’s work during WWI where he is said to use black as a color to better show color as a whole. It can be noted his art during this time is dark. It has a different feel from the other times of his work and may show conflict of war (emotionally).

The next sections of the book go through Matisse dabbling (briefly) with a proto form of cubism (what would make Picasso…well, Picasso), a “decorative” phase, and lastly his cut-out phase.

Comprehensive and displaying many full color plates, this is an informative book and a beautiful one too. ❤️

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must have for any artist.

[KitInstLouis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is never great in these show catalogs, but it covers the 1992 NY MOMA show I caught and just wanted to remember the day through Matisse's gorgeous images.

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written by the Matisse expert and curator of the 1992 MOMA restrospective exhibition on Matisse, John Elderfield. It includes 412 mostly full page plates reproducing the artistist's paintings, drawings, sculptures, paper cut-outs, etchings, maquettes for stained glass windos and ceramics, prints and book plates.

According to Elderfield the aim of the exhibition was to:

...reveal the full extent and depth of Matisse's achievements, thus to clarify his identity as a modern artist

The sheer scope of the exhibition is certainly succeeds in its aims as does the size and quality of the reproductions in the book.

The author includes an introductory 65 page essay, Describing Matisse organized into the following sections:

I. Profund and lucid sight
II. An impossible coherence
III. An experience in luxury
IV. A primal scene
V. The birth of modern painting

While touching on such key issues as the hedonistic and the radical aspects of Matisse's work, the relative merits and transcendence of Matisse's work in relation to Picasso's, Matisse's language of signs, the exotic, pastoral, decorative, spiritual and theatrical connotations of his work, his use of patterns and color, the essay comes across as a critic's observations for critics. I found most of it confusing or incomprehensible; I would guestimate understanding about a (scattered and fragmentary) third of the essay. As just an example of a portion of the essay out of my ken, regard:

I want to consider three key characteristics, or formal devices, of his art [...] I borrow their names from the criticism of literary work. The first formal device I will discuss is caesura [...] the second is aporia [...t]he thitd and final device is ellipsis [...] Caesura occurs because things are omitted. Aporia does not allow for completion. Ellipsis straddles these two other devices. [...I]t allows the viewer to to bridge the gap of caesura, and encourages the viewer to discover what aporia is too uncertain to say.

The greater part of the book, Plates and Chronology, consisits of the catalogue by John Elderfield with Beatrice Kernan, in which blocks of plates are interspersed with a very detailed chronology compiled with Judith Cousins, a chronology which includes additional photographs of works in various degrees of completion, the author, his family and other contemporary artists, his models, key locations, rooms and studios. For example the second section of Plates and Chronology which covers Matisse's Fauvist period (1905-1907) starts with a one page overview of what Matisse accomplished in the period, followed by a detailed four page chronology including nine photographs or reproductions including a Andre Derrain's drawing of Matisse painting by the seashore, Drain's 1905 oils portrait of Matisse, a photograph of Leo and Gertrude Stein's studio at the time, the photograph of a two page spread about the works exhibited in the 1905 Salon d'Automne and a portrait of Matisse, his wife and his daughter Marguerite in his studio at Colliioure (summer 1907). The section then includes forty pages reproducing 53 art works by Matisse. Plates and Chronology is divided into the following sections:

I. 1869-1905 Discovering modern art
II. 1905-1907 The Fauvist epoch
III. 1908-1913 Art and decoration
IV. 1913-1917 Abstraction and experimentation
V. 1917-1930 The early years at Nice
VI. 1930-1943 Themes and variations
VII. 1943-1954 The final years

This is a book whose reproductions are to be appreciated and savoured at length and then revisited at leisure... or simply to be dipped into serendipitously. In my opinion the selection and reproductions included merit five stars; I knock off a star for the texts, even as I recognize te painstaking work sunk into the detailed chronology.

[Eva_812 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This books delves into Henri Matisse' work and his life. I learned that I don't really know anything about him, so the fact that this book starts with describing Matisse and only later describes his life and work chronologically, was a bit of a barrier for me, especially because his work in the first part is not described chronologically and goes back and forth. It would have made more sense to me to first show his work and show us a timeliness and only then go into details about themes, form etc.
Both parts (about the description of his work and about his life) are elaborated on extensively and it's clear a lot of research has been done. However, the writing itself is dense and contains unnecessary difficult words and descriptions in my opinion.

[Tony Poerio · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can't always make it the museum, so this is the next best thing, and Matisse is one of my all time favorites.