''La Négresse'' (1952–53) by

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...

is a

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouach ...

découpée, made of cut pieces of colored paper.

Medium

Starting in the 1930s, Matisse began to experiment with creating art by cutting paper into shapes. By 1950, he had primarily shifted to this mode of art making, perhaps because his health and disabilities made painting on a large scale difficult."Henri Matisse"
,

Pompidou Centre The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

. Retrieved 25 December 2007. These "cut-outs" were often

mural A mural is any piece of Graphic arts, graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' ...

-sized and made from pieces of paper painted with

. ''La Négresse'' was first pinned onto the wall at his apartment in

Nice, France Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department in France. The Nice urban unit, agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one million

around 1952. He rearranged the composition until early 1953. It takes up an entire wall. A newspaper review called the figure "a giantess."

Subject or Inspiration

''La Négresse'' may be inspired by

Josephine Baker Freda Josephine Baker (; June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975), naturalized as Joséphine Baker, was an American and French dancer, singer, and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in France. She was the first Black woman to s ...

, a black American dancer whose popularity reached its height in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

during the 1920s and 1930s. One of Baker's famous outfits was a skirt made from

bananas A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – berry (botany), botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa (genus), Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called pla ...

, which Matisse may be invoking in the orange-yellow forms around the figure's waist.Wright, Alistair (Sept. 2014). "Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs". ''Artforum International, 53'', 370-371,12. "''La Négresse'', 1952–53, a work not in this show but inspired by the films of Josephine Baker, reiterates racialized clichés in the enlarged belly and hips and in the abstracted yellow form that represents Baker's notorious banana skirt. (In the catalogue, the curators celebrate Matisse's invention of a new visual sign for the skirt, but it is a sign utterly reliant on ready-made stereotypes.)" Baker's association with

jazz music Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, hymns, m ...

may have also inspired Matisse, who had previously designed a book titled ''Jazz'' (1947). Matisse's depiction has been criticized as reiterating "racialized clichés in the enlarged belly and hips." Others have proposed that Matisse presented black women as beautiful. Other scholars propose that the figure may be of another famous dancer,

Yvette Chauviré Yvette Chauviré (; 22 April 1917 – 19 October 2016) was a French prima ballerina assoluta and actress. She is often described as France's greatest ballerina, and was the mentor of another pair of well-known prima ballerinas named, Sylvie Guill ...

. Matisse had created an earlier work about a dancer (''Creole Dancer,'' 1950) that art critic

Louis Aragon Louis Aragon (; 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the Surrealism, surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littératur ...

identified as

Katherine Dunham Katherine Mary Dunham (June 22, 1909 – May 21, 2006) was an African American dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and social activist. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers of the 20th century and directed her own dance compan ...

, who Matisse had seen perform. The work may also be an imagined dancer or amalgamation of the previously discussed figures.

Reception

The work has been praised as "the culmination of Matisse's art." It was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 1973. In 2018, the work was referenced in the title of Denise Murrell's

exhibition An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibiti ...

and catalog ''Posing Modernity: the Black Model from Manet to Matisse.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Negresse, La 1952 paintings Paintings by Henri Matisse Paintings in the National Gallery of Art

Medium

Subject or Inspiration

Reception

See also

References