Henri Emile Benoit Matisse (1869-1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid original drawings. He was a draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor but known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded as one of the artists who defined the revolution in the visual arts in the opening decades of the twentieth century.
The intense colourism of the works painted between 1900 and 1905 bought Matisse notoriety as one of the Fauves ( French for "wild beasts" ), Many of his finest works were created a decade later when he developed a rigorously honed style using flattened forms and decorative pattern. In 1917 Matisse relocated to the French Riviera, his more relaxed style in the 1920,s gained him critical aclaim by critics as an upholder of the classical tradition of French painting.
When ill -health prevented him from painting in his final years, Matisse created a notorious and important body of work using the medium of cut-out paper collage.
Matisse's mastery of the language of colour and drawing in his works spanning half a century won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art and an important addition to any collectors' investment portfolio.