{"id":329666,"date":"2026-03-14T17:29:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T17:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/329666\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T17:29:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T17:29:22","slug":"matisse-exhibition-at-aic-shows-a-creative-hitting-his-stride-in-his-70s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/329666\/","title":{"rendered":"Matisse exhibition at AIC shows a creative hitting his stride in his 70s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artists follow varied career paths. Some maintain strong, steady production throughout their lifetimes. Some fade over time. Some are one-hit wonders who score success with one body of work that they can never replicate.<\/p>\n

But few accomplish what Henri Matisse did at the end of his career when his output seemingly declined. An explosion of energy and innovation re-ignited his creativity in the 1940s and thrust the septuagenarian back into the spotlight.<\/p>\n

The first recharged project was the 1947 artist book \u201cJazz,\u201d and its featured \u201ccut-outs\u201d are the centerpiece of a newly opened exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago that runs through June 1.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMatisse\u2019s Jazz: Rhythms in Color\u201d is not an expansive retrospective or major survey. There is no catalog, no high-profile loans nor any big historical points being made.<\/p>\n

That said, this compact, thoughtfully installed show has its own appeal. It offers the museum\u2019s first-ever display of all 20 color plates from \u201cJazz\u201d as well as a focused, digestible look at the artist\u2019s trajectory to that point.<\/p>\n

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\"Views<\/p>\n

Matisse turned to creating cut-outs after debilitating abdominal surgery in 1941 and pursued it almost exclusively from the mid-1940s until his death in 1954.<\/p>\n

Organized by Emily Ziemba, a research curator in the museum\u2019s department of prints and drawings, the exhibition also gives viewers a welcome chance to see a sizable swath of the Art Institute\u2019s expansive collection of Matisse, including pieces rarely shown. The museum acquired its first example by the artist in 1922 \u2013 a print. And it has added works by him nearly every year since, including \u201cThe Seamstress\u201d (1900), donated by gallerist Richard Gray and his wife, Mary, in 2022.<\/p>\n

Matisse\u2019s cut-outs were assembled with colorful abstract and semi-abstracted shapes that he cut from gouached sheets of paper and then collaged, arranging on the walls of his studio and transferring into a host of other media. He turned to this inventive technique after debilitating abdominal surgery in 1941 and pursued it almost exclusively from the mid-1940s until his death in 1954.<\/p>\n

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\"Views<\/p>\n

Matisse\u2019s cut-outs were assembled with colorful abstract and semi-abstracted shapes that he cut from gouached sheets of paper and then collaged, arranging on the walls of his studio and transferring into a host of other media<\/p>\n

The 20 eye-grabbing 16\u00bd-by-26-inch plates from \u201cJazz\u201d were exactingly reproduced by the T\u00e9riade printing atelier in Paris using hand-painted color stencils. They depict circus scenes, mythological figures and the artist\u2019s memories of Tahiti. Their sharp-edged forms exuberant colors and graphic boldness still throb with a sense of freshness and contemporaneity nearly 80 years after they were created.<\/p>\n

The original edition of \u201cJazz\u201d consisted of 250 copies (another 100 copies of just the color plates were also printed). The Art Institute smartly purchased its copy of the artist book a year after its release for just $375 \u2013 an unbelievable bargain from today\u2019s vantage point.<\/p>\n

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\"Views<\/p>\n

The exhibition gives viewers a welcome chance to see a sizable swath of the Art Institute\u2019s expansive collection of Matisse, including pieces rarely shown.<\/p>\n

In addition to \u201cJazz,\u201d this show concludes with another major cut-out, \u201cOceania-The Sea\u201d (1948), which textile designer Zika Ascher screenprinted and transferred onto an expansive 5\u00bd-by-12\u00bd-foot linen sheet.<\/p>\n

Also on view are artist books and earlier artworks. The show does a nice job of highlighting some of the recurring subject matter in Matisse\u2019s art, especially his odalisques, or reclining nudes, like the 31-inch-tall bronze \u201cSeated Nude\u201d (1922-29, cast 1951) or the lithograph \u201cLarge Odalisque in Striped Pantaloons\u201d (1925).<\/p>\n

Viewers can see hints of what was to come, none more telling than \u201cDaisies\u201d (1939). Sections of the oil on canvas almost appear to be cut out and collaged into place. The open, highly simplified rendering of a woman in the lower left in bold red and black prefigures his approach with the cut-outs.<\/p>\n

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\"Views<\/p>\n

In \u201cDaisies\u201d (1939), sections of the oil on canvas almost appear to be cut out and collaged into place.<\/p>\n

Though it was not necessarily intended that way, \u201cMatisse\u2019s Jazz\u201d serves as a perfect follow-up to a 2023-2024 show in the prints and drawings galleries that focused on Matisse\u2019s modernist counterpart and occasional rival, Pablo Picasso.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t done a Matisse project in our [print and drawings] galleries ever,\u201d Ziemba said, \u201cso I just think it was naturally time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artists follow varied career paths. Some maintain strong, steady production throughout their lifetimes. Some fade over time. Some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-329666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}