First Dutch Matisse Survey In 60 Years Announced

Henri Matisse

After Tate’s critically acclaimed exhibition of Matisse’s cut-outs, Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum has announced “The Oasis of Matisse,” the first Matisse survey in the Netherlands in over 60 years, set to open in late March 2015. The exhibition will cover over 100 works borrowed from 30 collections, and will feature more Matisse works shown together than ever before in any Dutch museum.

Matisse’s paintings, cut-outs, and other works will be displayed alongside relevant pieces from the museum’s permanent collection. The Cut-outs were created made between 1943 and 1954, when the artist’s ill health prevented him from painting, creating works by cutting into painted paper with scissors to make pieces for commissions – from books and stained glass window designs to tapestries and ceramics. Matisse first used cut paper shapes to work out the arrangement of objects in his paintings in order to explore alternative compositions. Subsequently the cut-outs became a methodof working for the artist in their own right.

Bart Rutten, head of collections at the Stedelijk stated: “Comparing and contrasting Matisse’s work with pieces in the Stedelijk collection not only allows us to see the collection afresh, but also offers remarkable insights into one of the world’s most exhibited, researched, and written-about artists. When experienced in conversation with icons from our collection, lesser-known facets of Matisse’s work are revealed.”

A centrepiece of the new exhibition will be The Parakeet and the Mermaid (1952–53), a monumental, iconic paper cut-out, the work will be displayed alongside both other cut-outs, and rarely-seen works in fabric and stained glass that were inspired by them. “The Oasis of Matisse” will be on display at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, NL, from March 27–August 16, 2015.

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