Matisse and his muses

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Alexander Adams caught ‘Matisse and the Model’ in New York just before it closed

Some artists have intense relationships with models, others have casual ones; some relationships have a romantic aspect, others familial, still others are paid and purely professional. It is a mark of how reticent Matisse was and how sparing are the memoirs of his family and associates that this area is still so dimly understood in Matisse’s case. The identities of some of his models are still being ascertained. Interest in the painter’s relationship with young attractive female models is not idle or prurient. Knowledge about the backgrounds of models (their place of origin, age, occupations, which artists they worked with, how they came to know Matisse and so forth) all assist in an understanding and ordering of Matisse’s works. For example, the dates when a model was in Paris or Nice can help assign a painting to particular season or month in a year.

‘Matisse and the Model’, Eykyn Maclean, New York (closed 10 December) explored the relationship between specific models and Matisse’s art during the full span of his career, starting in 1900 and ending a few years before his death. Despite the progress of this exhibition and the research put into the catalogue a lot remains unknown.

In the catalogue Hilary Spurling, Matisse’s biographer, has researched the identities of his sitters and has found a full name for Matisse’s Italian model ‘Loreta’: Laurette Arpino. She discusses various Italian models with whom Matisse collaborated and connects art to sitters. Ann Dumas, curator of the exhibition, discusses Matisse’s other principal models and his general approach.  Works not on display are included as illustrations.

Henriette Darricarrère is the figure in Matisse’s odalisques of the 1920s and is best known from a photograph as the reclining woman in harem pants, who looks suspiciously at the artist. Appearances can be deceptive: Henriette modelled for Matisse for years so there is unlikely to have been any deep mistrust between the two. She is the sitter for Large Odalisque in Striped Pantaloons (1925), a lithograph in which the pantaloons stripes form a rotating vortex which generates a mesmerizing snail-shell spiral. It is hard to see the woman for the sweeping spokes of black on white, let alone ponder her character.

Wilma Javor was a dusky-skinned beauty whom Brassai photographed with Matisse in 1939. She appears inSeated Woman in a Long Dress (1939) and a number of other charcoals displayed. Once one is acquainted with the faces of the models it becomes possible to recognize them in the art. Whether or not we should strongly connect a picture with an actual person is debatable. After all, Matisse may have felt that his sitters were part of his materials, like clay or ink, there to be animated rather than to impart some unique and ineffable truth about themselves. It is through displays of this kind that we can judge that issue for ourselves. Perhaps Matisse used models as a starting point and their characters and appearances indicated how a picture or sculpture might develop but the needs of the picture outweighed verisimilitude. As more works can be assigned to certain models a definite pattern of subjects’ influence may become apparent.

Lydia Delectorskaya was more than a model for Matisse. In this instance Matisse and his model formed a strong bond. She became his model, studio assistant and companion, faithfully serving him from 1932 until his death in 1954. She was the exception to the rule: a close companion over more than 20 years with an acknowledged public role in his life (even if not always in the titles of his drawings of her), her Nordic appearance was at variance with the looks of his usual Mediterranean models.

Daughter Marguerite was quickly identifiable in one of the many portraits Matisse made. Although it was nice to see two self-portraits, one feels they were included because they were available rather because they contributed anything specific to the theme of the exhibition. The prominence of Matisse’s family as subjects was (wisely) not represented here as this subejct requires its own show and publication.  All these works were lent from private collections. This is part of a recent tendency for major commercial galleries to mount monographic loan displays with an emphasis on research and exposition rather than sales. (The recent Schiele show in London was one of these.)

It is a cliché to say that Matisse’s art is colourist in essence (that significant strengths of his best pieces come from use of colour) and therefore colour assumes primacy over composition and drawing. Matisse was a masterful colourist but he did not need colour to make successful pictures: as evidenced by the charcoals, ink line drawings and lithographs which made up the bulk of this grouping. The mixture of bronzes, paintings, drawings in ink and charcoal, prints and mural sketches gave a rounded view and reminded us how the human figure pervades so much of Matisse’s art, in interiors, pastorals, portraits and nudes.

Despite the relatively small number of works on display, ‘Matisse and his Models’ made pleasurable viewing and the research that underpins the catalogue has advanced our knowledge about this most guarded of painters.

The catalogue Matisse and the Model is published by Eykyn Maclean, New York 2011, 81 pp., $60.00. ISBN 978 0 9830834 1 2