Lot Essay
Wande de Gubriant has confirmed the authenticity of this painting, which will be included in her forthcoming Matisse catalogue raisonn.
In 1917 Henri Matisse left his home in Paris and rented a studio in Nice, where he would spend the majority of each year for the remainder of his career. His arrival in Nice signaled the beginning of a new phase in the artist's oeuvre, one which saw his bold, experimental and color-driven canvases supplanted by more refined, naturalistic images in which light, rather than color, becomes the defining feature.
Painted at the height of his Nice Period, L'Atelier Lutrin depicts a seated figure in quiet repose. Behind her, a large, open window allows the sun to pour into the room where it lands on the floor in a pattern of light and lines echoing those of the window. The warm, subltle tonalities and suffused light impart a tranquil, sensual mood, while the presence of carefully observed optical effects speaks of Matisse's principal artistic concern during this decade. By positioning the woman in the lower left portion of the canvas and providing minimal facial details, Matisse further reveals that his true concern is not portraiture but the interplay of light and shadow and interior and exterior.
When Matisse began exhibiting his Nice paintings, critics responded to the radical shift in style with mixed reviews, some nostalgic for his modernist exercises in color and space and others praising what was perceived at the time as a renewed classicism. Of the paintings inspired by the sun-drenched studio interiors and landscapes of the south of France, Jean Philippe Marcel wrote:
In effect, his pictures since 1916 breathe more sweetness; they charm by their musicality and seem made more for the delectation of the eyes than for the torment of the mind...the artist, having arrived at the peak of his form, aspires for more clarity, more simplicity, more classicism, a term that cannot be exaggerated in defining the last phase of his production. (P. Marcel quoted in J. Flam, "Henri Matisse," Great French Paintings from the Barnes Collection, New York, 1993, p. 272)
Similarly, Matisse's own sentiments at this time express a desire to compose lyrical pictures which privilege visual sumptuousness and exude a calming harmony. He writes:
What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter, an art which could be for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue. (quoted in J. Flam, atisse on Art, London, 1973)
In 1917 Henri Matisse left his home in Paris and rented a studio in Nice, where he would spend the majority of each year for the remainder of his career. His arrival in Nice signaled the beginning of a new phase in the artist's oeuvre, one which saw his bold, experimental and color-driven canvases supplanted by more refined, naturalistic images in which light, rather than color, becomes the defining feature.
Painted at the height of his Nice Period, L'Atelier Lutrin depicts a seated figure in quiet repose. Behind her, a large, open window allows the sun to pour into the room where it lands on the floor in a pattern of light and lines echoing those of the window. The warm, subltle tonalities and suffused light impart a tranquil, sensual mood, while the presence of carefully observed optical effects speaks of Matisse's principal artistic concern during this decade. By positioning the woman in the lower left portion of the canvas and providing minimal facial details, Matisse further reveals that his true concern is not portraiture but the interplay of light and shadow and interior and exterior.
When Matisse began exhibiting his Nice paintings, critics responded to the radical shift in style with mixed reviews, some nostalgic for his modernist exercises in color and space and others praising what was perceived at the time as a renewed classicism. Of the paintings inspired by the sun-drenched studio interiors and landscapes of the south of France, Jean Philippe Marcel wrote:
In effect, his pictures since 1916 breathe more sweetness; they charm by their musicality and seem made more for the delectation of the eyes than for the torment of the mind...the artist, having arrived at the peak of his form, aspires for more clarity, more simplicity, more classicism, a term that cannot be exaggerated in defining the last phase of his production. (P. Marcel quoted in J. Flam, "Henri Matisse," Great French Paintings from the Barnes Collection, New York, 1993, p. 272)
Similarly, Matisse's own sentiments at this time express a desire to compose lyrical pictures which privilege visual sumptuousness and exude a calming harmony. He writes:
What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter, an art which could be for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue. (quoted in J. Flam, atisse on Art, London, 1973)