Left: Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954). Red Madras Headdress (Le Madras rouge), between the end of April and mid-July 1907. Oil on canvas, 39 3/8 x 31 7/8 in. (100 x 81 cm). BF448. © 2016 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image © 2016 The Barnes Foundation
Opposite: Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954). Blue Still Life (Nature morte bleue), summer 1907. Oil on canvas, 35 5/16 x 45 15/16 in. (89.7 x 116.7 cm). BF185. © 2016 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image © 2016 The Barnes Foundation
Below: The December 2015 publication, Matisse in the Barnes Foundation, is the critically acclaimed treatise about the artist and the collection at the Barnes.
groundbreaking painting. The central group of dancers in this masterpiece became the dominant theme of The Dance, completed for Barnes in 1933. Recently, Dunham Townend, Head of Freeman’s Modern & Contemporary Art Department, discussed with Sylvie Patry, the Barnes Foundation’s Deputy Director for Collections and Exhibitions and Gund Family Chief Curator, the upcoming symposium at the Barnes, Looking at Matisse Today. With international Matisse scholars, the event will examine the artist’s practice and impact through lectures and panel discussions. This symposium coincides with the timely landmark publication late last year of the acclaimed three-volume study, Matisse in the Barnes Foundation, which covers the Barnes’s astounding holdings of Matisse works. Matisse in the Barnes Foundation, a major publication chronicling the artist
64
and his close connection to the Barnes Foundation, was published last December. Was the upcoming symposium planned in conjunction with the publication of the book, or did the book inspire you and your colleagues to look at Matisse in a new light, thereby paving the way for this landmark event? This new publication really paved the way to the symposium. I tend to think that books have a longer life than the moment of their publication and such an in-depth work lends itself to multi-year research. I think it is also interesting to give the book another kind of public showcase. Why do you think that now is a particularly relevant moment for the study of the artist? I am not a Matisse scholar, but I have been struck in recent years by the number of landmark exhibitions presented by
major institutions such as the Musée National d’art Moderne in Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago, MoMA, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, to name but a few. New exhibitions focused on Matisse are in the works all over the world. Additionally, it seems to me that a younger generation is interested in researching Matisse, as witnessed by in-progress and recently published dissertations. What are your goals for the symposium? What do you hope your guests—both scholars and members of the general public alike—will take away from it? Our goal is to assess the state of our knowledge on Matisse today and to outline what could be done next in terms of research, exhibitions and collections. I think it is fascinating to show that even with an artist as famous as Matisse, scholars are always finding new ways to