Henri Matisse, the French painter known for his unique usage of colour, after an extraordinary career spanning over 30 years became unable to paint due to ill health and began to cut into painted paper with scissors as his primary technique to create what is now known as the Matisse Cut-outs. For the first time ever, Tate Modern Gallery in London will be putting together 120 works by Matisse in an exhibition entitiled “Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs.”
Matisse was a leading figure of modern art and one of the most significant colourists of all time. He made a large body of work of which the cut-outs are a brilliant final chapter.
Many of his finest works were created between 1906 and 1917 influenced in part by his travel to North Africa. He traveled to Algeria in 1906 studying African art and Primitivism; after viewing a large exhibition of Islamic art in Munich in 1910, he spent two months in Spain studying Moorish art. He visited Morocco in 1912 and again in 1913 and while painting in Tangiers he made several changes to his work, including his use of black as a colour.
The colorful Cut-outs will be on display at Tate Modern, London, from April 17 2014 to 7 September 2014.
