partnership: Matisse’s four backs REUNITed at the Musée Matisse Nice

The Nice Matisse Museum is committed to developing major cultural partnerships with national and international institutions, and is pursuing its policy of active collaboration with the Centre Pompidou.

As a result, Back I and Back IV recently joined the museum’s collections for a period of five years, and are displayed alongside two other pillars of the collections, Back II and Back III. Rarely reunited in their entirety, these four bas-reliefs represent not only the apogee of Matisse’s three-dimensional art, but also a major milestone in the history of modern sculpture. They were created over a period of just over 20 years, between 1908 and 1930, with each stage marked by a new development. As in a metamorphosis, the figures are transformed each time, starting from a natural form and evolving towards an autonomous artistic expression.

These exceptional loans are a unique opportunity for the Matisse Museum to highlight Matisse’s creative process and the singularity of his work.

The Matisse Museum houses one of the world’s largest collections of sculptures by Henri Matisse. Thanks to various bequests from Henri Matisse, Amélie Matisse and their heirs, the museum boasts an exceptional collection of paintings, drawings and gouache cut-outs, but it is the Jean Matisse bequest, in particular, to which the institution owes the bulk of its sculpture collection. In 1978, in memory of her husband Jean Matisse – the eldest son of Henri Matisse and himself a sculptor – Marie Matisse donated an exceptional collection of 50 sculptures to the French State, to be held by the Nice Matisse Museum. This remarkable gift brought the number of sculptural works held by the museum to 58, making it one of the most complete collections of three-dimensional pieces by the artist. Henri Matisse’s entire sculptural oeuvre comprises 84 pieces. The Jean Matisse bequest was presented at the Matisse Museum on 25 June 1979.