Matisse

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is one of the most famous artists of modernism. His groundbreaking work had a significant influence on his time and many later generations of artists to this day. By liberating color from the motif and simplifying forms, he redefined painting and brought a hitherto unknown lightness to art. Matisse was also an innovator in sculpture, and in his late silhouettes he developed an unmistakable interplay between painting, drawing and sculpture. The Matisse retrospective at the Fondation Beyeler spans all of the artist's creative phases. It begins with the early paintings from around 1900, continues with the revolutionary paintings of Fauvism and the experimental works of the 1910s, then moves on to the sensual paintings of the Nice period and the 1930s, and finally culminates in the legendary silhouettes of the late 1940s and 1950s. This wealth of important paintings, sculptures and silhouettes reveals the development and richness of Matisse unique oeuvre. The exhibition begins with Charles Baudelaire's 1857 poem Invitation to the Voyage, to which Matisse repeatedly referred. Following Baudelaire's poem, the exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler is thus also conceived as a journey through the work and life of Matisse, in which travel played an important role.