Lot Essay
Nu au Turban is a wonderfully relaxed and fresh depiction of Matisse's favourite model of the prime niçoise years, Henriette Darricarrère. She is sitting, totally at ease with her surroundings, in Matisse's sunlit room at the Hôtel Mediterranée et de la Côte d'Azur, overlooking the Promenade des Anglais, Nice. The picture is a superb example of the early maturity of the figurative theme that was to preoccupy Matisse throughout the 1920s; the joyous and sensual representations of models in domestic settings. Matisse approached the subject with a characteristic seriousness of purpose and progressive intent that was aptly demonstrated in the exhibition Henri Matisse: The Early Years in Nice held at the National Gallery of Art, Washington in 1986-87.
Matisse arrived in Nice at the end of 1918. During successive winter and spring seasons he took rooms, initially at the Hôtel Beau Rivage and latterly at the Hôtel Mediterranée, which he was later to describe as, "An old and good hotel, of course! Ah what pretty italian-style ceilings! What tiling! It was wrong to demolish the building [circa 1937]. I stayed there four years for the pleasure of painting nudes and figures in an old rococco sitting room. Do you remember the light we had through the shutters? It came from below as if from theatre footlights. Everything was fake, absurd, amazing, delicious." He took a different room each season and the present picture, painted early in 1921, was done in the fourth such room which had a front terrace overlooking the Baie des Anges, red tiled flooring, long transparent curtains, decorative wallpaper and an oval-mirrored table, all of which features Matisse employed in a myriad pictorial variations. The room was described in the following terms by Charles Vildrac who visited Matisse there in 1920; "I went to see Matisse once in that room in Nice which looks out on the promenade and on the sea and which he has left since. I knew most of the paintings that he painted there these last years. Therefore I found the high window and its curtains, the red rug and its decoration...I recognised the decorated porcelain vase and the lacquered dressing table with the oval mirror. Without a doubt, I found myself in the room "of the Matisse paintings".
'First of all, this room wasn't as big as I had thought: I had gotten the impression from certain canvases that one could walk in it freely, with great strides, dance in it with ease; actually it was all lengthwise quite cluttered and the window took up the better part of its width.
'Didn't Matisse paint this window, these curtains saturated with light, this red rug, this furniture, the same day as when some magician had created this room with the stroke of a wand, while each object, occupying the only place that suited its shape, its volume, its color, had just ingeniously, and for the first time, offered up its grace to the light? You understand, of course, that the magician was Matisse himself...' (J. Cowart, "The Place of Silvered Light", in Henri Matisse: The Early Years in Nice, Washington, 1986, p. 26).
The aura of luxuriant and slightly sensual calm that permeates Nu au Turban stems directly from Matisse's own sense of contentment with his surroundings and his relaxed intimacy with his model. Nice 'itself was enough to confirm his sense of well being. Painting had merely to reflect it, as directly as possible. Spontaneity, a studied candour, even the repetitiveness with which the same ideally radiant interior was presented, were all essential to this demonstration...Matisse was systematically reinforcing his faith in painting as a source of undisturbed pleasure" (L. Gowing, Matisse, London, 1979, pp. 142-3). The models and odalisques of the Nice paintings such as Nu au Turban may have been, as Pierre Schneider remarks, 'the abundant fruits at once of a light-hearted nostalgia, of a beautiful living dream, and of something that I experienced almost ecstatically day and night, under the enchantment of that climate.' They were also a conscious reaction against Matisse's style and preoccupations of the previous decade, and can be seen as part of a general 'Return to Order' experienced by French artists, writers and philosophers in the wake of the First World War. Matisse himself identified the need for change in a letter to Ragnar Hoppe in 1919: "When one has obtained what one wants from a particular domain, it is important to change one's course at the right time and look for something new. Actually, I'm looking for a new kind of synthesis." Paul Dermée had written in Nord-Sud in March 1917, "A period of exuberance and strength must be followed by a period of organisation, of sorting out, of science - in other words a classical period." Artists such as Picasso, Braque and Derain all painted grand, monumental classical figures at this time as their art took on a conscious simplicity born from a recognition of Greek and Old Master traditions and of the more recent example of Ingres.
Matisse's own return to natural figurative painting may also have been prompted by his visits to see Renoir at his home in nearby Cagnes in 1917 and 1918. In any case, Matisse's own Nice style has more in common with Renoir than with the academic and dry classicism of Picasso and Derain. As Lawrence Gowing wrote, "He needed to recover for painting a natural reference that was missing in the deliberately processed images of modern art. The natural effects that concerned him were reviewed a good deal more systematically than the inconsequent style of the pictures suggested. First, the common radiance of colour was identified as a quality of reflected light, filtering into calm shuttered rooms by the sea...From the start his style was very literal, but quite mild and degagé, not at all laborious, portentous or ingenious. The paint was thin and the colour initially quite limited, restricted to begin with to a repeated and seemingly trivial scheme of pink and honey-colour. The apparently effortless lightness of touch which, as Matisse said, in fact cost him a lifetime of labour from morning to dusk, was the sign of confidence and contentment with an actual situation" (op. cit., p. 150). Marcel Duchamp was later to write "It is a wonderful thing to have Matisse's work for the beauty that radiates from it. However he has created a new wave of physical painting in this century."
The model for Nu au Turban, Henriette Darricarrère, personifies the physical look and mood of the Nice paintings. Just 18 years old in 1920, 'Matisse first saw her at the Studios de la Victorine performing as a ballerina before the camera. The artist arranged for her to begin modelling shortly thereafter [autumn 1920]...During her seven years of modelling Henriette excelled at role-playing and had a theatrical presence that fuelled the evolution of Matisse's art...Her personality seems to have been most receptive. She adopted the subject roles more easily and could express the moods and atmosphere of Matisse's settings without losing her own presence or her strong appearance. Her distinctive physical features - a sculpturesque body and a finely detailed face with a beautiful profile - are evident in many of the artist's paintings, sculptures and works on paper' (J. Cowart, op. cit., p. 27).
A small study for the present picture is in the Sam and Ayala Zacks Collection, Art Gallery of Ontario. Measuring 38.4 x 34.9cm. it is much darker in tonality and somewhat sketchier in technique. The canvas weave is distinctly visible through the thin paint application. In the present, larger picture the colours are more radiant and Henriette's body is modelled with a more sensuous touch. In the Zack's picture, the vase of flowers and the room decorations are designed to take away the focus of the composition from Henriette. In other respects the compositions are analogous and both have the device of the viewer being able to see the back of Henriette's head reflected in the oval mirror. This was characteristic of many of these "intime" Nice pictures and has the effect of opening up the interior space of the piece.
The Bernheim-Jeunes had been Matisse's prime supporters and dealers since 1909 when they had signed a three year contract with the artist for his entire production. The prices which they agreed to pay Matisse rose during the successive three year contracts so that by 19 September 1920 the price for a "Toile de 30" such as Nu au Turban had reached FF 5,500 (from the FF 1,500 of 1909). The gallery held annual Matisse exhibitions until 1926 when the contract finally lapsed. Nu au Turban seems to have gone quickly into the Bernheim-Jeune family collection after its purchase in 1921. Margrit Hanhloser-Ingold writes, "The directors of the gallery, Josse Bernheim and Gaston Bernheim de Villers, had magnificent personal collections of modern art, including important examples of Nice-period paintings by Matisse" ("Collecting Matisses of the 1920s in the 1920s", in Cowart et al., op. cit., p. 242).
Matisse arrived in Nice at the end of 1918. During successive winter and spring seasons he took rooms, initially at the Hôtel Beau Rivage and latterly at the Hôtel Mediterranée, which he was later to describe as, "An old and good hotel, of course! Ah what pretty italian-style ceilings! What tiling! It was wrong to demolish the building [circa 1937]. I stayed there four years for the pleasure of painting nudes and figures in an old rococco sitting room. Do you remember the light we had through the shutters? It came from below as if from theatre footlights. Everything was fake, absurd, amazing, delicious." He took a different room each season and the present picture, painted early in 1921, was done in the fourth such room which had a front terrace overlooking the Baie des Anges, red tiled flooring, long transparent curtains, decorative wallpaper and an oval-mirrored table, all of which features Matisse employed in a myriad pictorial variations. The room was described in the following terms by Charles Vildrac who visited Matisse there in 1920; "I went to see Matisse once in that room in Nice which looks out on the promenade and on the sea and which he has left since. I knew most of the paintings that he painted there these last years. Therefore I found the high window and its curtains, the red rug and its decoration...I recognised the decorated porcelain vase and the lacquered dressing table with the oval mirror. Without a doubt, I found myself in the room "of the Matisse paintings".
'First of all, this room wasn't as big as I had thought: I had gotten the impression from certain canvases that one could walk in it freely, with great strides, dance in it with ease; actually it was all lengthwise quite cluttered and the window took up the better part of its width.
'Didn't Matisse paint this window, these curtains saturated with light, this red rug, this furniture, the same day as when some magician had created this room with the stroke of a wand, while each object, occupying the only place that suited its shape, its volume, its color, had just ingeniously, and for the first time, offered up its grace to the light? You understand, of course, that the magician was Matisse himself...' (J. Cowart, "The Place of Silvered Light", in Henri Matisse: The Early Years in Nice, Washington, 1986, p. 26).
The aura of luxuriant and slightly sensual calm that permeates Nu au Turban stems directly from Matisse's own sense of contentment with his surroundings and his relaxed intimacy with his model. Nice 'itself was enough to confirm his sense of well being. Painting had merely to reflect it, as directly as possible. Spontaneity, a studied candour, even the repetitiveness with which the same ideally radiant interior was presented, were all essential to this demonstration...Matisse was systematically reinforcing his faith in painting as a source of undisturbed pleasure" (L. Gowing, Matisse, London, 1979, pp. 142-3). The models and odalisques of the Nice paintings such as Nu au Turban may have been, as Pierre Schneider remarks, 'the abundant fruits at once of a light-hearted nostalgia, of a beautiful living dream, and of something that I experienced almost ecstatically day and night, under the enchantment of that climate.' They were also a conscious reaction against Matisse's style and preoccupations of the previous decade, and can be seen as part of a general 'Return to Order' experienced by French artists, writers and philosophers in the wake of the First World War. Matisse himself identified the need for change in a letter to Ragnar Hoppe in 1919: "When one has obtained what one wants from a particular domain, it is important to change one's course at the right time and look for something new. Actually, I'm looking for a new kind of synthesis." Paul Dermée had written in Nord-Sud in March 1917, "A period of exuberance and strength must be followed by a period of organisation, of sorting out, of science - in other words a classical period." Artists such as Picasso, Braque and Derain all painted grand, monumental classical figures at this time as their art took on a conscious simplicity born from a recognition of Greek and Old Master traditions and of the more recent example of Ingres.
Matisse's own return to natural figurative painting may also have been prompted by his visits to see Renoir at his home in nearby Cagnes in 1917 and 1918. In any case, Matisse's own Nice style has more in common with Renoir than with the academic and dry classicism of Picasso and Derain. As Lawrence Gowing wrote, "He needed to recover for painting a natural reference that was missing in the deliberately processed images of modern art. The natural effects that concerned him were reviewed a good deal more systematically than the inconsequent style of the pictures suggested. First, the common radiance of colour was identified as a quality of reflected light, filtering into calm shuttered rooms by the sea...From the start his style was very literal, but quite mild and degagé, not at all laborious, portentous or ingenious. The paint was thin and the colour initially quite limited, restricted to begin with to a repeated and seemingly trivial scheme of pink and honey-colour. The apparently effortless lightness of touch which, as Matisse said, in fact cost him a lifetime of labour from morning to dusk, was the sign of confidence and contentment with an actual situation" (op. cit., p. 150). Marcel Duchamp was later to write "It is a wonderful thing to have Matisse's work for the beauty that radiates from it. However he has created a new wave of physical painting in this century."
The model for Nu au Turban, Henriette Darricarrère, personifies the physical look and mood of the Nice paintings. Just 18 years old in 1920, 'Matisse first saw her at the Studios de la Victorine performing as a ballerina before the camera. The artist arranged for her to begin modelling shortly thereafter [autumn 1920]...During her seven years of modelling Henriette excelled at role-playing and had a theatrical presence that fuelled the evolution of Matisse's art...Her personality seems to have been most receptive. She adopted the subject roles more easily and could express the moods and atmosphere of Matisse's settings without losing her own presence or her strong appearance. Her distinctive physical features - a sculpturesque body and a finely detailed face with a beautiful profile - are evident in many of the artist's paintings, sculptures and works on paper' (J. Cowart, op. cit., p. 27).
A small study for the present picture is in the Sam and Ayala Zacks Collection, Art Gallery of Ontario. Measuring 38.4 x 34.9cm. it is much darker in tonality and somewhat sketchier in technique. The canvas weave is distinctly visible through the thin paint application. In the present, larger picture the colours are more radiant and Henriette's body is modelled with a more sensuous touch. In the Zack's picture, the vase of flowers and the room decorations are designed to take away the focus of the composition from Henriette. In other respects the compositions are analogous and both have the device of the viewer being able to see the back of Henriette's head reflected in the oval mirror. This was characteristic of many of these "intime" Nice pictures and has the effect of opening up the interior space of the piece.
The Bernheim-Jeunes had been Matisse's prime supporters and dealers since 1909 when they had signed a three year contract with the artist for his entire production. The prices which they agreed to pay Matisse rose during the successive three year contracts so that by 19 September 1920 the price for a "Toile de 30" such as Nu au Turban had reached FF 5,500 (from the FF 1,500 of 1909). The gallery held annual Matisse exhibitions until 1926 when the contract finally lapsed. Nu au Turban seems to have gone quickly into the Bernheim-Jeune family collection after its purchase in 1921. Margrit Hanhloser-Ingold writes, "The directors of the gallery, Josse Bernheim and Gaston Bernheim de Villers, had magnificent personal collections of modern art, including important examples of Nice-period paintings by Matisse" ("Collecting Matisses of the 1920s in the 1920s", in Cowart et al., op. cit., p. 242).