Previously unpublished interviews with the giant of modern art. In 1941, aged 72, Matisse recounted his many memories, particularly his youthful experiments, hopes, and ideas with Pierre Courthion in the then occupied France, only to then suddenly refuse their publication.[...]

In this astounding book (winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year 2005) Hilary Spurling's fascinating exploration of Matisse's world uncovers the secret life of the artist, whose paintings shocked and infuriated his contemporaries while paving the way for modern art. This beautifully presented secon[...]

"If my story were ever to be written down truthfully from start to finish, it would amaze everyone," wrote Henri Matisse. It is hard to believe today that Matisse, whose exhibitions draw huge crowds worldwide, was once almost universally reviled and ridiculed. His response was neither to protest nor[...]

'Hilary Spurling's "The Unknown Matisse" is a truly wonderful biography. Her prose is muscular, rhythmical, carrying a lot of information, yet swift, enthralling. She has done for Matisse what George Painter famously did for Proust in the 1950s. Besides being a first-rate scholar, she is an artist i[...]

A lively and deeply researched group biography of the vibrant figures who invented modernist art in bohemian Paris at the dawn of the twentieth century
When the young Pablo Picasso first arrived in Paris in 1900, the most progressive young artists all lived and worked in the seedy hillside quar[...]

A brand new look at the extremely beautiful, if underappreciated, later works of one of the most inventive artists of the 20th century Between 1935 and his death at midcentury, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) undertook many decorative projects and commissions. These include mural paintings, stained glass,[...]

The works that Henri Matisse (1869-1954) executed between late 1913 and 1917 are among his most demanding, experimental, and enigmatic. Often sharply composed, heavily reworked, and dominated by the colours black and grey, these compositions are rigorously abstracted and purged of nearly all descrip[...]

Throughout his long career, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) continually expanded the boundaries of his art. By repeating images in pairs, trios, and series, he conducted an ongoing dialogue with his earlier works in order to, as he put it, "push further and deeper into true painting." In this fresh approa[...]

The Art Institute of Chicago's opportunity to host the International Exhibition of Modern Art, better known as the Armory Show, in 1913 set a radical new course for modern and contemporary art in the United States. This monumental exhibition introduced audiences to some of the greatest avant-garde a[...]

In this richly illustrated study, Lawrence Gowing takes us through Matisse's career, assessing the lifetime of arduous labor that culminated in the apparent spontaneity of his color and ease of his imagery, and in the formidable intelligence of his compositions. The detailed discussion of individual[...]

Living with Matisse, Picasso, and Christo explores one of the most ambitious and idiosyncratic - yet largely unknown - private collections of 20th-century Western art, and its complex, charismatic creator Theodor `Teto' Ahrenberg (1912-89). Containing over 6,000 artworks acquired between the late 19[...]