Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs
by habituallychic
10 . 07 . 14I was lucky enough to see Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs this summer at the Tate Modern in London and today I saw it in New York. Even though the new exhibition that opens at the Museum of Modern Art on October 12th contains much of the same art, it still feels exciting and new. One piece that wasn’t on display in London is The Swimming Pool (1952) which is owned by MoMA and just underwent an extensive restoration process. It hasn’t been seen publicly in over 20 years.
The show focuses on the final chapter of the artist’s career with much of the art falling into a 10 year period from 1943-53. Matisse explored the theme of line and color and how they came together in his cut out shapes and abstract compositions. His assistants helped with much of the work and I didn’t realize until today that all of the colors were painted onto white paper and allowed to dry before being cut. You can still see the brush strokes in some of the works.
The Tate Modern show proved to be very popular and timed tickets are required for the MoMA exhibition which runs until February 8, 2015. If you can’t make it to New York , I highly recommend buying the wonderful catalog Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs and the interactive website.
“Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse ( 1869-1954)