Books: Chatting with Henri Matisse

Over 70 years later, the interviews are now available in hardcover

 ROME--This series of interviews with Henri Matisse is still fresh although they were given in 1941 when he was recovering from a surgical operation. Despite giving the interview, the artist had second thoughts about sharing it with the public and refused to allow its publication. Kept in the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, they have only now been published.

 The interviews provide valuable insight into the mind of a major artist who was not only a painter but sculptor, set designer and maker of memorable cut paper collages. His prosperous, provincial family harboured no artistic ambitions and actually wanted him to become a lawyer. He did not start painting until he was a young man and did not make any significant sales until he was almost 40- a late starter but a strong finisher. The interviews evoke Parisian art schools at the beginning of the last century: we see him sharpening his skills as he went from one teacher to another or sketching passing cyclists to capture a sense of movement.

 The interviews, which took place over nine days in restaurants and at Matisse’s home, also provide vivid glimpses of the man: the freckles on the back of his hand, his insomnia, his travels to places such as Morocco and Tahiti, his revulsion from the smell of magnolias, his skill as a violinist, his rowing which won him a medal as the most assiduous in the Nice Rowing Club, and his habit of blowing clay pellets at people from behind shutters as relief from long hours painting,

 They offer new insight into Matisse who was known as a disciplined man who always sought control and did not lose himself in bohemia.  It was this desire for masterly control, I suspect, which made him refuse permission for publication even after the publisher Albert Skira and the rather pretentious interviewer, the Swiss critic Pierre Courthion, had spent time and effort on the book. Perhaps Matisse felt he had given away too much although some potentially embarrasing passages had been cut including those in which he expresses contempt for childish American collectors.

 There is also no mention of the Nazi occupation of much of France during which they stole many valuable artworks. Recently in a Munich apartment, nearly 1,500 of these paintings were discovered which a German art dealer had left to his son.  Among them is Matisse’s portrait of a woman taken from Paul Rosenberg, a Parisian art dealer who had it in his house near Bordeaux.  The Nazis arrived there about the time Matisse was giving his interviews but Rosenberg was already in New York and the painting was stollen. In recent years Anne Sinclair, ex-wife of the controversial former International Monetary Fund head,  Dominique Strauss- Kahn, has searched tirelessly for the painting.  Now it has been found as fresh as the interviews, and perhaps even more welcome.

 The interviews show that Matisse single-mindedly looked after his own interests as a man but in his art he managed to give free rein to his imagination and unleash the energy of the colours he painted with.   

 The compact book contains both the French original and an English translation, an introduction by Serge Guilbaut plus some essays on Matisse.

 

 Chatting with Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview

 Interviews by Pierre Courthion

 Paul Getty-Tate Modern Books, 368 pgs, 30 pounds sterling.

This Portrait of a woman found in a German apartment is believed to be a Matisse