Matisse with his Cut Outs
It’s easy to love Matisse. Joyous, colorful, a masterful eye for design and oh- his line!
Just in the nick of time I braved a winter blizzard on the sketchy Chinatown bus to catch the exhibition of his Cut-Outs at MOMA in its final days.
It was well worth the adventure in and trudging through Manhattan’s slush, snow and ice.
View of MOMA’s sculpture garden. Cold outside, but bright clear sun after the previous evening’s blizzard.
Room after room, his gouache (what: opaque water color paint, how to say it: rhymes with squash!) painted paper cut outs dance across the primarily white walls of MOMA. Bold and confident, Matisse is ever the master. We see him in a video in the later years of his career- and life, , energetically and deliberately using shears instead of a brush. He sits in his wheel chair snipping away, turning, spinning the paper without any apparent drawn lines as his guide. We also see his commission for The Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence through his sketches, preliminary drawings and cutouts, an illuminated window and a slide show of the completed project. Breathtaking.
Matisse’s Chapel Altar in Vence, France
Put that on your bucket list.
Sounds like a field trip to me!
Yes Liza, looking forward to more of them… hopefully out to NM as well!