Visuel de l'affiche de l'exposition.
Œuvres :
- Henri Matisse, Tulipes et huîtres sur fond noir, 1943, huile sur toile, Musée national Picasso, Paris
© Succession H. Matisse | Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau
- David Hockney, 30th January 2021, peinture sur iPad, collection de l’artiste © David Hockney
Curated by:
Claudine Grammont
As part of the Nice Art Biennale, the Musée Matisse presents an unprecedented conversation between David Hockney and Henri Matisse. After Matisse and Picasso, The Comedy of The Model (2018) and Cinématisse. A Painter and Cinema (2019), this new dialogue is consistent with the museum’s ambition to look at Matisse through the lens of his contemporaries and of his legacy.
The exhibition Hockney – Matisse. Un Paradis retrouvé starts with a recent series of flower iPad paintings which have not yet been exhibited. The show, curated by Claudine Grammont, then takes the public on a journey through the museum’s permanent collection seen through the prism of David Hockney’s art.
Never reduced to simple juxtapositions, the display creates surprising echoes which show what their two worlds have in common, particularly sensual continuity between the studio space and its objects – the mental space of creation – and the outside-landscape, in Nice, Tahiti or Los Angeles. The French Riviera coincides with California through several themes: the swimming-pool, the window and lush gardens.
From room to room, we understand that David Hockney’s work is never far from Henri Matisse’s, whether in the pure lines of his drawings, in his landscapes full of his body and movements, or in his relationship with the model and, more generally speaking, in his desire to embrace reality. Traces of the same uncompromising gaze can be found everywhere in the works of two painters who never stop reflecting on perception and exploring its multiple potentialities. The same desire for colour can also be found everywhere in their art: it gives us pure delight as it opens onto their paradis retrouvé.
The exhibition brings together 70 works by David Hockney, from the 1960s to now, a selection of works by Henri Matisse from the museum’s collection and exceptional loans from the Fondation Beyeler and the Musée national Picasso-Paris. The totality of David Hockney’s works comes from the artist’s personal collection and the David Hockney Foundation, Los Angeles.
Catalogue of the exhibition: “Hochney-Matisse, un Paradis retrouvé”, Paris, In Fine éditions d’art, 2022, 135 p. – 35 €
Bilingual French/English edition
A richly illustrated book, including an exclusive interview between Claudine Grammont, curator of the exhibition and director of the Matisse Museum, and David Hockney.
