Deceptively simple Matisse reveals artist's staying power

10 July 2016 - 02:00 By Tymon Smith
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When I was growing up in the late 1980s on a plot in Broederstroom, north of Johannesburg, I remember the art exhibition posters and prints my mother hung on the walls of our house. In particular I have a recollection of two prints of cutouts from Matisse's seminal 1947 book Jazz.

'Portrait de Madame Matisse', 1905, one of the earlier works on show by the artist.
'Portrait de Madame Matisse', 1905, one of the earlier works on show by the artist.
Image: Henri Matisse

These images depicted horses in circus scenes and used bold colours and deceptively simple forms.

Today, almost three decades later, I find myself standing in the Standard Bank Gallery in downtown Johannesburg, looking at the original plates from the book.

You could argue that - because of the undeniable influence of the artist's cutout period on modern imagery, in everything from logo design to billboards - it's easy to be weary and cynical about his work. But there's an undeniable immediacy and boldness that strikes you when you see the work in the flesh.

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The Jazz cutouts - made from cut paper - are some of the few works that are up on the walls when I visit the gallery, where staff and moving men are busying themselves, their hands covered in blue surgical gloves, as they make the preparations to hang the work ahead of the opening of the show next week.

It strikes me that it's not a bad day on the job when you get to be one of the first people to see the largest collection of Matisse's work ever to be shown on African soil.

Patrice Deparpe, curator of the Musée départemental Matisse in the small northern French town Cateau-Cambrésis, established by the artist in his birthplace shortly before his death, has travelled a long journey in the company of the majority of the 87 works that will be shown.

He accompanied the works from Europe in the back of a cargo plane, ready, "like the captain of the Titanic", to go down with his charges if anything went wrong.

Luckily, all was in order - after a two-day acclimatising break at customs and a suspicious inspection of the works by customs officials (who didn't care about the art's appearance as much as its potential to be used as foils for contraband), they are now here, ready to amaze and surprise audiences for the next two months.

As co-creator Federico Freschi, executive dean of the University of Johannesburg's faculty of art, design and architecture,points out: "They have an astonishing freshness and that's one of the big thrills - no matter how cynical or jaded you are, or how much you think you have seen it all before - when you encounter things for the first time, they do have a certain kind of charge."

He could die any day, so he was absolutely free to do what he wanted and take his drawing as far as possible

Freschi and Deparpe first began discussing the possibility of a Matisse show in South Africa two years ago and, although initially there might have been grandiose ambitions to, say, mirror the blockbusting Tate Modern cutout show of 2014, there are - as Freschi explains - unavoidable practical considerations.

Like his younger, friendly rival Picasso, Matisse enjoyed significant recognition and success in his lifetime and has had almost consistent public acclaim and drawing power in the decades since his death in 1954.

Google his name and you will see that there are at least four shows of his work under way at several museums around the world and so, as Freschi points out, "there's so much invested in the imagination of Matisse ... there's a lot of competition for the work that is available.

A lot of the works are committed years in advance and you simply cannot get hold of them. The logistics and insurance on those works are just beyond the reach of most institutions. I would dare say that Standard Bank is the only institution in South Africa that has the political will and can muster the resources to do it."

The bank has sponsored most major modern masters' exhibitions in the country during the past two decades, including those of Marc Chagall, Joan Miró and Picasso.

For Deparpe, who works closely with the Matisse family, there was no question of a charge for works from the Cateau-Cambrésis collection - but there was a condition that the exhibition had to include significant outreach. To that end there are school workshops and visits that will form part of the programme.

The curators have also described their approach as "educational", providing a selection of work from across Matisse's career and concluding with one of the final paintings produced shortly before his death.

The cutouts were produced during a short period towards the end of Matisse's life, after World War 2 and after he had survived a post-operative embolism resulting from an operation for duodenal cancer in 1941.

There's a misconception that he devoted himself to the cutout form because he was bedridden and unable to paint following his illness, but - as the painting Woman in a Blue Gandurah from 1951 proves - this was not the case.

Instead, he threw himself into the cutouts because he saw them as a new form which allowed him to realise many of his lifelong concerns about colour and what Picasso's muse Françoise Gilot once described as "the audacity of simplicity".

As I watch, workers are carefully prising the large-scale linen screen print Oceania, the Sea, out of its crate. It's seemingly free form, but, on closer inspection, it's a meticulous cutout arrangement of plants, birds and fish, inspired by the artist's memories of a trip to Tahiti in 1930. It brings home the idea of an ill and ageing Matisse remembering a time when he was more mobile and able to travel and see things that would stay with him for many years, percolating towards this final, bold expression.

As Deparpe points out, the artist's illness made him realise that "he could die any day and so he was absolutely free to do what he wanted and take his drawing as far as possible".

 

It's that freedom that strikes me most in the images I'm able to see. A freedom echoed by the choice of Jazz as the title of the book - the music form that accompanied the US forces that liberated France and which the French celebrated as an expression of their release from Nazi oppression.

Yet, in spite of their bold lines and striking colours, there's a calmness that settles over me standing in front of these works, a calmness that Matisse intended, for as he once said: "I want people who are tired, worried, frazzled to experience calm and rest in front of my work."

In these increasingly uncertain times, Matisse provides much-needed relief and contemplation; demonstrating the undeniable talents of a unique artist whose influence continues to be felt, from galleries in New York and Baltimore to the Walter Battiss exhibition in Braamfontein or even the walls of a modest house in Broederstroom.

"Henri Matisse: Rhythm and Meaning" is at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg from July 13 to September 17

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