About the exhibition
The exhibition adresses a process of investigation that fascinated Matisse throughout his career.
One exhibition – three different museums
Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris
Matisse. Paires et séries
7 March – 18 June, 2012
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
Matisse – Doubles and Variations
14 July – 28 October, 2012
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Matisse – In Search of True Painting
4 December, 2012 – 17 March, 2013
Matisse – Doubles and Variations
14 July - 28 October 2012
The exhibition offered a unique opportunity to view an extensive selection of Matisse art in series and pairs; works that are only rarely exhibited together.
In collaboration with the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Denmark brought together a wide range of Matisse’s best paintings.
Doubles and variations as a method
The exhibition focused on how Matisse would work systematically with repetition as a method. He repeatedly returned to subject matter he had previously addressed, testing its potential yet again. As he repeated such subjects he would vary the colours and techniques employed.
All stages of the artist’s development
The exhibition presented all the major phases of the artist’s development with a selection of works that spanned the full range from Matisse’s production around 1900, when his method first took shape, to the late 1940s when he reached a final pinnacle with his painting.
Curators of the exhibition
Cécile Debray
Curator of Modern Collections
Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris
Dorthe Aagesen
Curator, Senior Researcher
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
Rebecca Rabinow
Curator, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
