Even though public and critical reaction to the first exhibited fauvist works was one of hostility and astonishment, fauvist paintings are today among the most loved of all twentieth-century art. Here are the artists--their works, relationships, achievements, affinities, and critics. 170 illustrations.
"Despite its having been the subject of several books, Fauvism remains a little known artistic movement. The author demonstrates that Fauvism constitutes a specific pictorial system for the expression of reality - a system that can be clearly defined not by any preliminary doctrine, but by dynamic action. He also explains how these paintings are not merely the result of a technique of expression using pure colors, but rather a lyrical translation of the artist's relationship to the universe - a new type of spatial awareness."--BOOK JACKET.
Born at the dawn of the 20th century, Fauvism burst onto the artistic scene at the 1905 Salon d'Automne with great controversy by throwing bright, vibrant colours in the face of artistic convention. Fuelled by change, artists like Matisse, Derain, and Vlaminck searched for a new chromatic language by using colour out of its habitual context. Freed from the strict technique advocated by the École des Beaux-Arts, they used blocky colours as their main resource, saturating their stunning paintings. The author invites us to experience this vivid artistic evolution that, although encompassing a short amount of time, left its mark on the path to modernity.
"Throughout his long career, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) continually expanded the boundaries of his art. By repeating images in pairs, trios, and series, he conducted an ongoing dialogue with his earlier works in order to, as he put it, "push further and deeper into true painting." In this fresh approach to a much-studied artist, prominent scholars from the United States and Europe examine more than sixty works in concise chapters that focus on this aspect of Matisse's working process. From early pairs such as Young Sailor I and II (1906) and Le Lexe I and II (1907-8) through a series of late studio scenes from Vence (1946-48), Matisse is shown revisiting a given theme with the aim of devising innovative, often radical, solutions to such problems as how to portray light, handle paint, select colors, and manipulate perspective. New technical studies of the early paired works and photographs documenting the evolution of his later paintings help to elucidate Matisse's complex evolution. In numerous excerpts from letters and interviews, he is revealed as an artist who regularly questioned himself and his methods, a man of powerful intellect who regarded each new painting as an adventure. A significant addition to art historical literature, Matisse: In Search of True Painting is a revelatory study of a seminal figure in 20th-century modernism."--Page 4 of cover.
In 1941 the Swiss art critic Pierre Courthion interviewed Henri Matisse while the artist was in bed recovering from a serious operation. It was an extensive interview, seen at the time as a vital assessment of Matisse's career and set to be published by Albert Skira's then newly established Swiss press. After months of complicated discussions between Courthion and Matisse, and just weeks before the book was to come out--the artist even had approved the cover design--Matisse suddenly refused its publication. A typescript of the interview now resides in Courthion's papers at the Getty Research Institute. This rich conversation, conducted during the Nazi occupation of France, is published for the first time in this volume, where it appears both in English translation and in the original French version. Matisse unravels memories of his youth and his life as a bohemian student in Gustave Moreau's atelier. He recounts his experience with collectors, including Albert C. Barnes. He discusses fame, writers, musicians, politicians, and, most fascinatingly, his travels. Chatting with Henri Matisse, introduced by Serge Guilbaut, contains a preface by Claude Duthuit, Matisse's grandson, and essays by Yve-Alain Bois and Laurence Bertrand Dorleac. The book includes unpublished correspondence and other original documents related to Courthion's interview and abounds with details about avant-garde life, tactics, and artistic creativity in the first half of the twentieth century.
The Hahnloser Collection was created in the early twentieth century in close friendly exchange between the collectors Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler and their famous artist friends. The publication presents some 120 works providing an overview of this unique international collection of Swiss and French modernism as well as illustrating its exemplary cultural-political character.00The catalogue sheds light on the collectors? close contact with their artist friends including Pierre Bonnard, Ferdinand Hodler, Henri Matisse and Félix Vallotton. It provides an insight into unknown aspects of the artists? lives, their creative work and the motivation and passions of the collectors themselves. Today the collection is largely in the possession of the collectors? heirs or has been donated to the art museums of Bern and Winterthur.00Exhibition: Albertina Museum, Wien, Austria (22.02. - 23.05.2020).