Matisse trained for the law before a long illness at 21 introduced him to painting during his recovery; he abandoned his legal career for the École des Beaux-Arts in 1892. At the 1905 Salon d’Automne, he and André Derain showed canvases in such violently bright, unnaturalistic color that a critic dubbed the group "Fauves" — wild beasts — giving the movement its name.
After decades exploring color and pattern across painting, sculpture and design, Matisse underwent surgery for abdominal cancer in 1941 that left him largely confined to a bed or wheelchair. Unable to paint standing at an easel, he turned to cutting shapes from sheets of painted paper — "drawing with scissors," as he called it — producing some of his best-known work in his final decade. He died in Nice in 1954.
Matisse paintings on display, museum by museum
The Art Institute of Chicago
- Apples — Gallery 391 (1916)
- Bathers by a River — Gallery 391 (1909–10, 1913, and 1916–17)
- Lemons on a Pewter Plate — Gallery 394 (1926)
- Still Life with Geranium — Gallery 391 (1906)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
- Nude on a Chaise-Longue — Gallery 62 (1919)
Cleveland Museum of Art
- Interior with an Etruscan Vase (Intérieur au vase étrusque) — 223 20th Century Avant-Garde (1940)
- Tulips — 223 20th Century Avant-Garde (1914)
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
- The Studio Under the Eaves — Gallery 1 (1903)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- Lilacs — 910 (1914)
- Nasturtiums with the Painting "Dance" I — 911 (1912)
- Odalisque with Gray Trousers — 823 (1927)
- The Three O'Clock Sitting — 900 (1924)
MoMA, New York
- Composition — "MoMA, Floor 5, 506" (Issy-les-Moulineaux, 1915)
- Dance (I) — "MoMA, Floor 5, 506" (Paris, Boulevard des Invalides, early 1909)
- Landscape at Collioure — "MoMA, Floor 5, 506" (Collioure, summer 1905)
- Music (Sketch) — "MoMA, Floor 5, 506" (Collioure, spring-summer 1907)
- Periwinkles / Moroccan Garden — "MoMA, Floor 5, 506" (Tangier, winter-spring 1912)
- Still Life with Aubergines — "MoMA, Floor 5, 506" (Collioure, summer 1911)
- The Blue Window — "MoMA, Floor 5, 506" (Issy-les-Moulineaux, summer 1913)
- The Moroccans — "MoMA, Floor 5, 506" (Issy-les-Moulineaux, late 1915 and fall 1916)
- The Piano Lesson — "MoMA, Floor 5, 506" (Issy-les-Moulineaux, late summer 1916)
- The Red Studio — "MoMA, Floor 5, 506" (Issy-les-Moulineaux, fall 1911)
- The Rose Marble Table — "MoMA, Floor 5, 506" (Issy-les-Moulineaux, spring-summer 1917)
The National Gallery, London
- Portrait of Greta Moll — Room 45 (1908)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
- La coiffure — EG-103-E (1901)
- Les Gorges du Loup — EG-103-E (1920/1925)
- Lorette with Turban, Yellow Jacket — EG-103-E (1917)
- Odalisque, Half-Length--The Tattoo — EG-103-E (1923)
- Palm Leaf, Tangier — EU-415-A (1912)
- Pianist and Checker Players — EG-103-E (1924)
- Pot of Geraniums — EG-103-E (1912)
- Still Life — EG-103-E (c. 1905)
- Woman Seated in an Armchair — EG-103-E (1940)
Musée de l’Orangerie
- Femme au violon — Salle 11 (entre 1921 et 1922)
- Femme à la mandoline — Salle 11 (entre 1921 et 1922)
- Femmes au canapé ou Le Divan — Salle 11 (1921)
- La Jeune Fille et le vase de fleurs ou Le Nu rose — Salle 11 (vers 1920)
- Le Boudoir — Salle 11 (1921)
- Nu drapé étendu — Salle 11 (entre 1923 et 1924)
- Odalisque bleue ou l'Esclave blanche — Salle 11 (entre 1921 et 1922)
Musée Picasso, Paris
- Marguerite — Salle 3 (hiver 1906 - 1907)
- Nature morte aux oranges — Salle 21 (début 1912)
Tate Britain, London
- Standing Nude — Modern Times 1910-1920 (Room 13) (1907)
- Studio Interior — Studio Practice (Room 2) (c.1903–4)
- Trivaux Pond — Room 2 (1916 or 1917)
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
- Canal du Midi — Sala H (1898)
- Las flores amarillas — Sala 38 (1902)
- Pequeño desnudo en cuclillas con brazos — Sala H (1908)
Rooms and display status checked against each museum’s own collection database.
Listen to the commentary in the gallery
This list tells you where to look. In front of the actual painting, CulturAll adds the audio commentary: photograph the work or its label, listen, then ask your questions.
