Biography of Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was born on 31 December 1869, in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Nord, France. He was an artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid, brilliant and original draughtsmanship. He was a master draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but excelled primarily as a painter.
Matisse is considered, with Picasso, as the greatest artist of the 20th century. He was initially labelled as a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s, however, he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.
The first painting of Matisse acquired by a public collection was Still Life with Geraniums (1910), exhibited in the Pinakothek der Moderne. Today, a Matisse painting can fetch as much as US $17 million. In 2002, a Matisse sculpture, Reclining Nude I (Dawn), sold for US $9.2 million, a record for a sculpture by the artist.
Matisse died of a heart attack at the age of 84 in 1954. He is interred in the cemetery of the Monastère Notre Dame de Cimiez, near Nice. He was a great painter and paintings are a great asset for art.
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