Displaying items by tag: henri matisse: the cutouts

A string of blockbuster shows at  London’s world-renowned museums helped to attract record numbers of tourists to the capital in the first half of this year, according to figures released today.

Tate Modern’s "Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs" exhibition pushed  the number of visits to the gallery to almost 700,000 in the first six months of 2014 — up from 425,000 for the same period last year.

Official figures released today put the capital on course for its most successful tourism year. International tourists made 8.459 million trips to London between January and July, a 7.6 per cent increase on 2013.

This fall, New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will present a monumental exhibition devoted to Henri Matisse’s cut-outs. Late in his career, Matisse developed his cut-out technique, which involved cutting organic shapes out of painted sheets of paper and arranging them into lively compositions on his studio’s walls. The process gave Matisse a renewed sense of freedom and he lauded the technique for its immediacy and simplicity, which he believed helped him express his artistic urgencies more completely.

“Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs” will be the largest and most extensive presentation of these unique works. The exhibition will present approximately 100 cut-outs -- borrowed from public and private collections around the world -- alongside a selection of related drawings, prints, illustrated books, stained glass, and textiles.

MoMA’s own Matisse cut-out, “The Swimming Pool,” recently underwent a multi-year conservation effort and will serve as a centerpiece of the exhibition. The cut-out, which was composed specifically for Matisse’s dining room in his apartment in France, was acquired by MoMA in 1975 and has been off view for over 20 years.

“Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs” will be on view at the Museum of Modern Art from October 25, 2014 through February 8, 2015.

The Tate Modern in London has announced that they will present the largest exhibition of Henri Matisse’s (1869-1954) late works. Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs will feature 120 of the artist’s paper cut-outs made between 1943 and 1954, when his health was diminishing and he found himself unable to paint.

Matisse’s first cut-outs were made between 1943 and 1947 and were presented together in Jazz 1947, a book of 20 plates. Copies of the book along with text handwritten by Matisse will be shown alongside the original compositions. Other highlights from the exhibition include the Tate’s own The Snail, the Museum of Modern Art’s Memory of Oceania, and the National Gallery of Art’s Large Composition with Masks. The exhibition will stand as a testament to the importance of the final chapter in Matisse’s long and influential career.

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs will be on view from April 17, 2014 though September 7, 2014.