| Matisse was born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis and went to study law at Paris in 1887. By 1891, however, he had given up law and begun to paint. He studied at the Académie Julian and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts with Gustave Moreau and in 1901 exhibited his work at the Salon des Indépendants. During this time he met one of the leading figures of the French modern art scene: Maurice de Vlaminck. Matisse worked in several media, from paintings, lithographs and etchings, to murals for the Barnes Foundation, Pennsylvania, tapestry designs and stage sets for Léonide Massine's ballet 'Rouge et Noir'. Heralded as the father of the fauvist movement in the first decades of the century, while dividing his time between Paris and the South of France, he later concentrated on 'papiers découpés' or paper cutouts, examples of which can be seen in 'Jazz', the book he wrote and illustrated in the early 1940s, published in 1947. The plates used in this book are stencil reproductions of paper cutouts. One of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, Matisse's work was sought after by collectors during his lifetime, numerous exhibitions have been held of his work and the Musée Matisse was inaugurated in Cateau Cambrésis in 1952, shortly before his death in Nice in 1954 |
