Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (December 31, 1869 – November 3, 1954) is a French artist, known for both his use of color and his fluid and original draftsmanship.
He is a draftsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter.
Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helps to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts throughout the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture.
The intense colorism of the works he paintsbetween 1900 and 1905 bring him notoriety as one of the Fauves (wild beasts).
Many of his finest works are created in the decade or so after 1906, when he develops a rigorous style that emphasizes flattened forms and decorative pattern
In 1917, he relocates to a suburb of Nice on the French Riviera, and the more relaxed style of his work during the 1920s gains him critical acclaim as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting.
After 1930, he adopts a bolder simplification of form.
When ill health in his final years prevents him from painting, he creates an important body of work in the medium of cut paper collage.
His mastery of the expressive language of color and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, wins him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.
