A review of The Unknown Matisse A Life of Henri Matisse: The Early Years, 1869-1909 by Hilary Spurling. With the second volume of John Richardson’s great Picasso biography already out, it was only a ...

For a boy whose "dreams were full of color," life in Henri Matisse's industrial village is bleak. Young Henri is a source of anxiety for his hardworking parents, who fear he will never make a living; ...

ST. LOUIS — Are you near a window? Try looking out. Henri Matisse used to look out windows a lot. He saw colors. Hilary Spurling, in her great Matisse biography, reported that the French artist once ...

From Fauve colors to Cubist compositions, studio-assisted cut-outs and numerous naked women, few artists have shaped our idea of modernism as much as Henri Matisse. Born on New Year’s Eve 1869 in the ...

The leaders of a short-lived but consequential art movement that flourished early in the 20th century take center stage at the Met Museum. By Roberta Smith If you ever took an art history survey in ...

Matisse’s friends were dying in the trenches when he met a new model. “Our interest’s on the dangerous edge of things,” wrote the poet Robert Browning. “The honest thief, the tender murderer, the ...