‘CLASSICAL MODERNITIES:
MATISSE AND HIS
DIALOGUE WITH BONNARD,
GILOT AND PICASSO
1930–1938

The 1930s began with a renewed sense of purpose. Matisse’s travels to the United States and Oceania gave fresh impetus to his work under new light. In 1930, he accepted a commission to create a mural for Dr Albert Barnes’s foundation in Pennsylvania. In La Danse [The Dance] he projected his greatly simplified drawing into space and made his first use of paper cut-outs to arrange his composition. The work continued back in Nice, aided by his assistant and collaborator Lydia Delectorskaya, who was also his favourite model and the inspiration for Le Rêve [The Dream] and Nu rose assis [Seated Pink Nude].

Picasso, Matisse’s friend and rival since their first meeting at the Stein residence in 1906, pursued a parallel path in Nature morte au bougeoir [Still Life with Candlestick], though Picasso’s pictorial resources and model always appear subsumed into his own artistic persona. Young painter Françoise Gilot, who became Picasso’s partner in 1946, seemed to approach her Évier et tomates [Sink and Tomatoes] with the same empathy that Matisse granted to objects.