In the exhibition christened Salon d’Automne, back in 1905, the critic Louis Vauxcelles called the young Henri Matisse a fauve (“beast” written in French). Hence the artistic movement that follows his work is called fauvism. The artist is known for his paintings of bright colors and sharp contrasts. His sculptures, which show an almost obsessive interest in the study of the human figure, have been relegated to the background.
To give the sculptural work of the painter the place it deserves, the Canal de Isabel II Foundation hosts the exhibition Matisse Metamorphosis, in which in addition to seeing 33 sculptures by the “fauvist”, we can see drawings, lithographs, photographs and documents that are part of his legacy.
Bronze, movement and repetition
The exhibition, which can now be visited free of charge in the Mateo Inurria 2 hall, is divided into three rooms. In the first we find small bronze sculptures, mostly female, categorized in three poses: crouching, reclining and with arms raised.
The second is dedicated to portraiture. Here we find the heads of the Jeanette series . Here we see the evolution of the same model in different versions. The progressive transformation of the bust, which goes from realism to abstraction, is the perfect result of metamorphosis: an artistic method very present in the sculptures of the French genius, which affects the constant change of human appearance. The last room, smaller than the rest, has sketches, drawings and even a video loaned by the Gaugin Museum explaining the technique of bronze casting.
Aymeric Jeudy, director of the Matisse Museum in Nice and Sandra Gianfreda, curator at the Kunsthaus have joined forces with the Canal Foundation to bring to Madrid this collection, of great artistic relevance given that only 84 sculptures by the famous painter are preserved today. Until January 12, the capital will have the privilege of hosting more than a third of these pieces after having been exhibited in renowned museums in Switzerland and France.