In August the Royal Academy is putting on Matisse in the Studio. Of course the works will not be for sale so if you’d like to buy a Matisse hasten along to the Bernard Jacobson Gallery.
Among the stuff they are selling is this one depicting Matisse painting his model, Antoinette Arnaud, lounging in front of a window in his hotel room overlooking the sea in Nice. I wonder what they are asking for it? It was sold at Christie’s in 2014 for £6.8 million. Jackie Wullschlager’s description in The FTWeekend is hard to improve on.
Wallpaper of golden arabesques, round mirror, vase, curtain rings, rhyme with her curvaceous forms; set against them are rigid verticals of window, shutters, patterned tablecloth, the artist’s upright chair and striped pyjamas. Matisse displays all this as he is painting it at the easel, yet he shows himself from the back, looking into a makeshift studio which he is transforming into a piece of theatre. We know he could not really depict himself from life at this angle in this room: the self-portrait is the crowning artifice of the marvellous drama of light and sensuality.
To bring us back to reality, take a look at this photograph of Matisse at work. It makes the creative process much more mundane.
Matisse has inspired many artists. I want to point you towards just two. First, Victor Pasmore whose work is hanging at Pallant House in Chichester until 11th June. The thing that strikes me about Pasmore is that he was influenced by just about everybody. It is hard to connect his abstract later work – sometimes made from Perspex and wood – with his earlier homages to Matisse, Monet and Cézanne.
Secondly, Nicholas Hely-Hutchinson whose early work shows the influence of Dufy and Matisse; like Pasmore I much prefer it to his fussier later pictures. I bought this from his studio about twenty-five years ago. My photograph does not do it justice. It is of his wife when they were on holiday in Corfu. If you look closely there are trademark Matisse touches everywhere.
Another NH-H appears in an old post, Local News.