Matisse and American Art

Montclair Art Museum will present Matisse and American Art, the first exhibition to examine this French master’s profound impact upon the development of American modern art from 1907 to the present. His art has provided a liberating model for American artists’ varied explorations of vibrant color, strong, fluid lines, and clear compositional structures in their pursuits of self-expression.

First exhibition to examine this French master’s profound impact upon the development of American modern art from 1907 to the present

Featuring 65 paintings, archival objects, sculpture, prints, and works on paper, Matisse and American Art will juxtapose 19 works by Matisse with 44 works by American artists, including Max Weber, Alfred Maurer, Maurice Prendergast, Stuart Davis, Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Motherwell, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Romare Bearden, John Baldessari, Sophie Matisse, Faith Ringgold, and Helen Frankenthaler. Matisse’s transformative impact on their works is revealed not only by their adaptations of his palette and pictorial structures but also through their choice and appropriation of his subject matter—still lifes, landscapes, figurative works, studio interiors, and portraits. While previous projects have illuminated Matisse’s relationship with postwar artists, this will be the first exhibition to expand Matisse’s impact beyond the typical focus upon the New York School by extending it back to the beginning of the 20th century and forward to the 21st.

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The exhibition will open with an introductory section evoking a range of responses to the master, from the early 20th century study by his student Morgan Russell to Faith Ringgold’s late 20th century appropriation titled Matisse’s Model, with a fictional character based on the artist and other modern young women of color. The exhibition then proceeds with early 20th century explorations of the nude as seen in the work of Matisse’s students Max Weber and Sarah Stein, as well as William Zorach and Maurice Prendergast. The next section of the show addresses Matisse’s theme of the window as a metaphor for the dialogue between the interior world of the artist and the external world of reality. An archival section featuring Matisse on the cover of Time magazine in 1930, as well as various exhibition catalogues and publications, will serve as an orientation to the history of the dissemination of Matisse’s influence. The final sections of the exhibition explore Matisse’s pervasive postwar impact on artists, especially in terms of the bold, simplified profiles and vibrant colors of his cut-outs. Works by Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Motherwell, Stuart Davis, Judy Pfaff, Romare Bearden, and the illustrator Eric Carle represent the wide-ranging responses to Matisse’s inventive “drawing with scissors.” The exhibition concludes with the work of Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann, Andy Warhol, Janet Taylor Pickett, and John Baldessari, who have appropriated and adapted Matisse’s classic themes of the dance, the studio, the nude, portraiture, and the goldfish bowl as varying approaches to his universal art and fame.

This exhibition is complemented by a major scholarly catalogue. Pick one up in The Store at MAM, call 973-259-5137, or purchase yours online today!

The exhibition is organized by Gail Stavitsky, MAM chief curator, with Dr. John Cauman and Lisa Mintz Messinger. It is complemented by a major scholarly catalogue, Matisse and American Art, and two concurrent exhibitions Inspired by Matisse: Selected Works from the Collection and Janet Taylor Pickett: The Matisse Series.

Major support for Matisse and American Art is provided by The Henry Luce Foundation. Corporate sponsorship provided by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Generous funding provided by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Lisa and Joseph Amato, Susan V. Bershad Charitable Fund, Bob and Bobbie Constable, Karen Mandelbaum, Newton B. Schott and Antoinette LeQuire-Schott, Adrian A. Shelby and Edward Bindel, Margo and Frank Walter, and Christie’s. Additional support provided by The Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Horowitz 19th and 20th Century Fund for American Art, the Lyn and Glenn Reiter Endowed Special Exhibition Fund, Carolyn and Richard Barry, an anonymous gift in memory of Abram Stavitsky, the Judith Targan Endowment Fund for Museum Publications, and Richard Reiss.

This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

All Museum programs are made possible, in part, by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, Carol and Terry Wall/The Vance Wall Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and Museum members.