Bonnard-Matisse, a Friendship

(L) Henri Matisse, Dance Movement, 1945, private collection, courtesy Dina Vierny, Paris Photo Jean-Louis Losi © Succession H. Matisse; (R) Pierre Bonnard, Nu de dos à la toilette , 1934, Collection Centre Pompidou – Musée National d’art moderne – Centre de création Photo Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Jean-Claude Planchet.

To mark the 60th anniversary of the Fondation Maeght, Bonnard-Matisse, a Friendship focuses on the friendly and respectful relationship between Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse, and traces their links with Marguerite and Aimé Maeght, who founded the space in Saint-Paul de Vence near Nice (France) in 1964. The Maeghts were art dealers, publishers and lithographers, who built the stunning space and filled it with a amassing a collection of paintings, sculptures and works on paper by artists including Braque, Miró and Giacometti, as well as Alexander Calder, Fernand Léger, Marc Chagall.

The exhibition is organised around a number of themes, and features a wealth of rare works and documents on loan for the occasion. The exhibition explores the specific characters of the two masters, but also, by mirror effect, the particularities of each in their approach to the same subjects: self-portraits, the street, the light of the Midi, the painter and his model…