Musée Matisse

This museum honors the artist, who died in Nice in 1954. Seeing his nude sketches today, you'll wonder how early critics could have denounced them as "the female animal in all her shame and horror." Most of the pieces in the museum's permanent collection were painted in Nice, and many were donated by Matisse and his heirs. These include Nude in an Armchair with a Green Plant (1937), Nymph in the Forest (1935 -- 42), and a chronologically arranged series of paintings from 1890 to 1919. The most famous of these is Portrait of Madame Matisse (1905), usually displayed near a portrait of the artist's wife by Marquet, painted in 1900. An assemblage of designs prepared as practice sketches for the Matisse Chapel at Vence are on display along with The Créole Dancer (1951), Blue Nude IV (1952), and around 50 dance-related sketches drawn between 1930 and 1931. The artist's last work, Flowers and Fruit (1953), is made of cut-out gouache.

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