Matisse in Morocco

by Jeff Koehler

In winter of 1912, Henri Matisse—forty-two, nearing mid-career, and yet to find lasting critical acceptance, public admiration, or financial security since exploding to the forefront of the avant-garde in 1905 with his iconoclastic Fauve paintings—was struggling. Once the vanguard leader, the Parisian avant-garde now considered him passé. Matisse in Morocco tells the story of the artist's groundbreaking time in Tangier and how it altered Matisse’s development as a painter and indelibly marked his work for the next four decades.

Through Koehler's research and travel, we experience Matisse's time in Tangier, the paintings and their subjects, his relationships with his wife Amélie and his two important collectiors, and then come to understand the impact Morocco—its light, colors, culture, and artistic traditions—had on his art. From Landscape Viewed From a Window, to Zorah on the Terrace, from Kasbah Gate to the dream-like tableau Moroccan Café, these works from Morocco are now recognized as some of the most significant and dazzling of Matisse’s illustrious career.

Hardcover / 320 pages / 6 x 9 inches