The exhibition Henri Matisse: the dissolution of line and colour is organised around the donation of the ceramic La Piscine by Henri Matisse, which constitutes a remarkable addition to the collections of the Musée Matisse at Nice.
This exhibition demonstrates, on one hand, the many representations of water in the work of the painter, and discusses the reasons for which Matisse felt the sea, water and sky to be endless horizons of light and creation.
On the other hand, it focuses on the special character of the ability of the painter to create a line which approaches a kind of dissolution of the outline in the graphical space. Similarly, the painting may achieve, in its arrangement of planes and colours, a fluidity of the pictorial space.
Exhibition overview
ground floor - villa: Water and sky: endless horizons of creation/Water and its representations/The daydreams of the model/From daydreams to the dissolution of space and line
first floor - villa: The fluidity of the body/The fluidity of space: Tahiti/Presentation model of the ceramic La Piscine by Henri Matisse/The fluidity of water/Views on contemporary art/The Chapel of the Rosary in Vence: the dissolution of colour in light.
The exhibition presents 153 works, from the museum collection and from loans by the painter's family, numerous American and French private collections, and museums such as the Musée Matisse at Cateau-Cambrésis, the Museum of Modern Art of Céret, the Museum of Modern Art and Contemporary Art of Nice, the Museum of Modern Art of Saint-Etienne, the Musée de l’Annonciade at Saint-Tropez and the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation of New York.
- exhibition space level -1 and -2: Accompanying the exhibition Henri Matisse: the dissolution of line and colour and in homage to the donation of the ceramic La Piscine by Mr. and Mrs. Claude Duthuit, the Musée Matisse presents A decade of acquisitions.
