The Matisse Museum in Nice and the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris are dedicating a major exhibition to two leading designers who constantly rethought the 20th century…
If there were one common thread to link Henri Matisse (1869-1954) and Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008), it would undoubtedly be their desire to transgress the established boundaries between “fine arts” and “applied arts.” For Matisse, decorative prints, with their inherent dynamism, became the means of creating a pictorial space that transcended the limits of the tangible.[1] For Yves Saint Laurent, painting offered the possibility of moving from the two-dimensional to three-dimensional form, of conceiving clothing as a mobile unfolding in space, an art in motion. Sewing and painting are gestures that contribute to a shared experimentation with line, a shared precision in the handling of contrasts, between materials and volume.[2] “And although Henri Matisse and Yves Saint Laurent never met, the dialogue between them appears evident today.
The exhibition aims to highlight these correspondences and create a dialogue between the works of the two artists. It draws on the rich collections of the Musée Matisse Nice and those of the Fondation Pierre Bergé–Yves Saint Laurent, supplemented by prestigious loans from France and around the world.
Bringing together 160 works – haute couture clothing, folk traditions, paintings, drawings, textiles, accessories and archival documents – the Musée Matisse Nice offers a unique journey highlighting the profound unity of the links that the couturier – one of the greatest innovators of French fashion – forged with the art of Henri Matisse, one of the greatest artists of his time.
Nice Tourist Office