Matisse and Portraits On Wednesday 26 September, Matisse biographer Hilary Spurling delivered the 2007 National Portrait Gallery Annual Lecture: Matisse’s Women. An exhibition of drawings and prints by Henri Matisse, drawn from the National Gallery of Australia's extensive International Prints and Drawings Collection, is on display at the NPG to coincide with this Annual Lecture. Henri Matisse (France 1869–1954) considered drawing to be a very intimate means of expression and well suited to the art of portraiture. Throughout his career, the artist drew in charcoal, pencil, lithographic tusche or with a gouge to cut linoleum, producing some remarkable portraits and figure studies. His subjects included his favourite models Lydia Delectorskaya and Annelies Nelck or a member of the family, such as his grandson Paul Matisse. Matisse described his method of making portraits as follows: I find myself before a person who interests me…[and] set down her appearance on the paper, more or less freely. After half- an-hour or an hour I am surprised to see an image that is a more or less precise likeness of the person with whom I am in contact gradually appear on my paper. After the initial sitting, Matisse then underwent what he described as an ‘unconscious mental fermentation’. He would then return to drawing his model and according to the artist: … Thanks to this fermentation, in conformity with the impressions I received from my subject during the first sitting, I mentally reorganize my drawing with more certainty than there was in the result of the first contact. In this way Matisse absorbed and distilled his model’s attributes and he was able to portray his sitter, in what he considered was an ‘intimate exchange’ between himself and his subject. Jane KinsmanSenior Curator of International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books National Gallery of Australia |   |
