Matisse: The Red Studio - by Ann Temkin & Dorthe Aagesen (Hardcover)

About the Book

Catalog of an exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2022 May 1-September 10, and at the SMK, National Gallery of Denmark, in Copenhagen, 2022 October 13-2023 February 26.

Book Synopsis

The adventures, mysteries and many lives of a Matisse masterpiece

Created in 1911, Henri Matisse's The Red Studio would go on to become one of the most influential works in the history of modern art. The painting, which has hung in MoMA's galleries since 1949, depicts the artist's studio in the Parisian suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux, filled with his own artworks, furniture and decorative objects. Matisse's radical decision to saturate the work's surface with red has fascinated generations of scholars and artists, yet much remained to be discovered about the painting's genesis and history.
Published in conjunction with an exhibition that reunites the artworks shown in The Red Studio for the first time since they left Matisse's work space, this copiously illustrated catalog examines the paintings and sculptures depicted in it, from familiar works such as Young Sailor II (1906) to lesser-known pieces whose locations have only recently been discovered. A narrative essay by Ann Temkin, the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Dorthe Aagesen, Chief Curator and Senior Researcher at Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, traces the life of The Red Studio, from the initial commissioning of the work in 1911 through its early history of exhibition and ownership to its arrival at MoMA after World War II. The book features a rich selection of archival materials, including photographs, letters and ephemera, many of which have never before been published or exhibited. With its groundbreaking research and close reading of the work, Matisse: The Red Studio transforms our understanding of this landmark of 20th-century art.

Review Quotes

A tale that's no less fascinating than the painting itself--Howard Halle "ARTnews"

Looking Anew at a Strange Matisse Masterpiece... In 1911 Matisse created "The Red Studio," a self-enclosed world in his studio, by showing 11 earlier works of art, without the presence of the artist.--David Carrier "Hyperallergic"

The optical-sensuous equivalent of a five-alarm fire.--Sebastian Smee "Washington Post"

The Red Studio has the effect of making Matisse's world less abstract...Allows us to enter not only the artist's studio but also the life and mind of the artist--Daniel Ross Goodman "Washington Examiner"

Aesthetic bliss saturates--radically, to a degree still apt to startle when you pause to reflect on it--the means, ends, and very soul of a style that was so far ahead of its time that its full influence took decades to kick in.--Peter Schjeldahl "New Yorker"

A meticulous examination of the inner and outer life of a single painting.--Roberta Smith "New York Times: Arts"

We see how, in an incredibly condensed period of time, an artist can traverse universes and touch down in places unexpected. We witness an artist not only inventing and reinventing himself but reinventing art history as he does so. In these little spaces, you can almost hear these mighty engines roar.--Jerry Saltz "New York Magazine: Vulture"