Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was a French painter, sculptor and draughtsman. Around 1905 he and André Derain led Fauvism, which used bright, non-naturalistic colour. Works such as The Joy of Life, Dance and The Red Room made him, together with Picasso, the leading artist of early Modernism. From the 1920s he lived in Nice. When after an operation in 1941 he could hardly paint any more, he turned to cut-outs of painted paper, the papiers découpés, and designed the chapel in Vence.