Goldfish and Sculpture

Born in a small northern village near the Belgian border, Henri Matisse spent his entire life moving southward toward color and light.

Goldfish and Sculpture was painted by Matisse in 1912 at a time when Impressionism had given way to the revolution of the fauves and cubists.

Matisse began to favor still-life subject and decoratively arrayed interiors early in his student days.

The painting was shown in 1913 at Armory Show New York.

Matisse, whose reputation as leader of the Fauves soon after the turn of the century secured his enduring membership of the artistic avant-garde, continued to produce important and influential work in the years following World War II.
Goldfish and Sculpture

History of The Dinner Table by Matisse

In 1892, Matisse began study with Gustavo Moreau. After 5 years Moreau told Matisse that it was time for him to produce a major work to demonstrate his progress.

In 1896 Matisse sent thirteen canvases to the recently founded Society Nationales des Beaux Arts; sold one of them to the state; was elected an associate member of the society, nominated by its president Puvis de Chavannes and seemed set upon a respected academic painting career. A safe career was assured.

Matisse executed The Dinner Table, which he exhibited at the 1897 Salon de la Nationale.

However, the situation was reversed. Matisse had begun to investigate Impressionism and his painting The Dinner Table, exhibited at the Nationale in 1897, provoked hostile reaction.

People at Salon did not like this painting because it looked blurry. Not only did his impressionistic Dinner Table offend much of the Societe’s membership, his own father cut off his allowance.
History of The Dinner Table by Matisse

Henri Matisse

Henri Emile Benoit Matisse was born at the textile town of Le Cateau-Cambresis at eight o’clock in the evening on the last night of the year, 31 December 1869.

As a student he first studied law, then in 1890 turned seriously to painting.

Henri Matisse spent his entire life moving southward toward color and light. Matisse said he got his color sense for his mother, who was herself an accomplished painter on porcelain, a fashionable art form at the time.

He had a traditional academic training, studying with William-Adolphe Bougereau at the Academie Julian and then with Gustave Moreau at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.

He gained his initial fame as one of the Fauve painters exhibiting in the Salon d’Automne of 1905.

For more than 50 years, the dogged pursuit of color led him to some of the most remote villages on the south of France, as well as to some of its most popular locations.

One of his distinctions was his use of abstraction, simplified line, and pure color to produce recognizable imagery that was life-affirming and joyous. Matisse died in Nice on 3 November 1954.
Henri Matisse