Explore

How Henri Matisse’s childhood shaped his creative genius – a sweet illustrated story of unconditional parental love and the power of a creatively nurturing environment even amid dire poverty.

art and design Henri Matisse art Picasso culture and society

Picasso on Matisse and how creativity works:

Matisse does a drawing, then he recopies it. He recopies it five times, ten times, each time with cleaner lines. He is persuaded that the last one, the most spare, is the best, the purest, the definitive one; and yet, usually it’s the first. When it comes to drawing, nothing is better than the first sketch.

Above, MoMA curators used X-ray technology to reveal the many iterations behind Henri Matisse’s painting ‘Bathers by a River,’ on which the painter worked for eight years between 1909 and 1917.

More here.

art and design history and literature lit Henri Matisse James Joyce Ulysses art illustration history vintage

Matisse’s rare 1935 erotic drawings for James Joyce’s Ulysses