The Artists: Matisse's Son
CHENNO
from the surrealist Joan Miro and your file cabinets are stuffed with Alexander
Calder's penciled sketches of his famous mobiles, maybe it pays to be a pack
rat.
In six decades as a New York art dealer, Pierre Matisse, the son of French
painter Henri Matisse, showed work by Miro, Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Jean
Dubuffet and Marc Chagall, and filed away their letters, sketches, catalogues
and press clippings.
He worked tirelessly to introduce these and other masters of modern art, most
of them European, to an often reluctant American public. His persistence and
their talent helped reshape the nation's artistic landscape in the years after
World War II.
The Pierpont Morgan Library opened 219 boxes filled with the papers from Pierre
Matisse's Manhattan gallery to researchers last month and plans to show them in
occasional public exhibits. The Pierre Matisse Foundation, started by the
dealer's family after he died in 1989 at the age of 89, gave the archive to the
library last year.
``Pierre Matisse was the most important art dealer in New York from 1930 on,''
said Charles Pierce Jr., the library's director. ``He almost single-handedly
introduced America to some of the great early modernist painters and ...
sculptors.''
The dealer forged friendships with many of his artists and was particularly
close to Miro. The archive is filled with gems like an abstract Christmas
greeting Miro crayoned in blue, black, red and green on plain white paper, with
loops and lines similar to those in his paintings. ``Merry Christmas. Happy New
Year 1961. Joan,'' he wrote in French.
Calder sent Pierre Matisse reams of penciled diagrams of his mobiles and
sculptures to guide workers as they assembled the pieces for a 1964 show at the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. ``Please be sure to get the colors right,'' the
artist scrawled on one sheet.
As the son of one of the most important French painters of the 20th century,
Pierre Matisse grew up surrounded by art.
``The family was completely wrapped up in Henri Matisse's continuous artwork,''
said Pierre Matisse's son, Paul, a 66-year-old sculptor living in Groton, Mass.
``This was his gift, that faith in the importance of the artistic effort, that
came from living with his family.''
Pierre Matisse moved to New York in 1924, and opened the Pierre Matisse Gallery
in the Fuller Building on East 57th Street in 1931. He carefully chose his
artists and was fiercely devoted to them, mounting shows and promoting their
efforts despite widespread skepticism about modern art.
``People didn't understand it, people thought it looked weird,'' said Jack
Flam, a City University of New York art historian who is an expert on Henri
Matisse and who knew the son. ``It's almost like the kind of publisher who's
publishing poetry and you can't really make money on it, but you keep
publishing the books anyway.''
Pierre Matisse stuck by his artists, many of whom were already well-known in
Europe, and he grew wealthy as they slowly gained prominence in the United
States, Flam said. His efforts helped convince reluctant curators of modern
art's importance, and many works that passed through his gallery now hang in
the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other major
museums.
In one letter, translated from French in a catalog that accompanied an exhibit
of his work, Giacometti recalled a time early in his career when he found it
difficult to sculpt.
``I was lost, everything escaped me,'' he wrote. ``The head of the model before
me became like a cloud, vague, unlimited.''
Giacometti's mood soon improved, and a few pages later, apparently writing from
a cafe, he signed off: ``And now I stop, besides they are closing, I must
pay.''
A reserved, often formal man, Pierre Matisse believed in art's dignity and ran
a quietly elegant gallery.
``It was more like a church than a lively place,'' Paul Matisse recalled. ``It
was like walking into a beautifully run small museum.''
Pierre Matisse occasionally exhibited his father's paintings, but those who
knew him said he was determined to succeed on his own and didn't like relying
on his famous last name.
``Because he had the name Matisse, it gave him a kind of moral authority, or
clout ... that other dealers didn't have,'' Flam said. ``But at the same time
he was a very decent guy and didn't want to overuse it.''
The papers at the Morgan include 833 letters between Henri and Pierre, which
are sealed at the family's request until 2008 at the latest, but will probably
be made public ``sooner rather than later,'' Pierce said. Henri died in 1954.
``It's a beautiful record of an extraordinary relationship,'' said Paul
Matisse,.
Although many scholars believed the men were cool to one another, the
correspondence shows ``an astonishing amount of love that flowed between the
two of them,'' said Flam, who read the letters before they were sealed.
``Like a lot of artists, (Henri Matisse) probably had ambivalent feelings about
art dealers, saw them as sort of a necessary evil. ... But at the same time he
had a tremendous regard for Pierre personally. ... He saw his son as being on
the right side for modern art.''
Henri Matisse's devotion to his work taught Pierre the importance of standing
behind talented artists, although modern painting and sculpture were a tough
sell during his gallery's early years, Paul Matisse said.
``This is what he believed in,'' the son recalled. ``He believed ... that their
art was important and that they were important, and just as we need them to
make the work, they needed him to present it.''
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Painting is silent poetry, and poetry painting that speaks. - Simonides