Matisse: Drawing with Scissors is a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition from the Southbank Centre and will be open to all to visit for free from 4 May – 1 September 2024.

Matisse: Drawing with Scissors, a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition from the Southbank Centre features 35 lithographic prints of the famous cut-outs produced in the last four years of Matisse’s life, when the artist was confined to his bed. The works include many of his iconic images, such as The Snail and the Blue Nudes.

The exhibition will run alongside special craft workshops which celebrate the artist’s style including Drawing with Scissors: Collage and Decoupage with 3D Objects (18 May) and Stories in Collage: Creative Paper Collage Workshop (20 July). This is in keeping with Hove Museum’s ongoing celebration of contemporary craft and the relationship between alchemy and making.

The French painter, sculptor and designer, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was one of the 20th century’s most influential artists. His vibrant works are celebrated for their extraordinary richness and luminosity of colour and his spectacular paper cut-outs were his final triumph.

Matisse continued creating highly original works into his eighties. For his cut-outs he used paper hand-painted with gouache, which he carved into with scissors: ‘the paper cut-out allows me to draw in the colour… Instead of drawing the outline and putting the colour inside it… I draw straight into the colour.’ The colours he used were so strong that he was advised by his doctor to wear dark glasses.

The lithographic reproductions in this exhibition are taken from a special double issue of Verve, a review of art and literature, published by Matisse’s friend, the critic and fine art publisher Tériade, in 1958, four years after Matisse’s death. The publication was planned during Matisse’s lifetime and the first lithographic plates were prepared under his direction a few days before he died.

Matisse began his working life as a lawyer, before going to Paris to study art in 1890. At first strongly influenced by the Impressionists, he soon created his own style, using brilliant, pure colours, and started making sculptures as well as paintings. In 1905 he and his colleagues were branded the Fauves (wild beasts) because of their unconventional use of colour, and it was during this time that he painted his celebrated Luxe, Calme et Volupté (Luxury, Tranquillity and Delight).

‘There is no gap between my earlier pictures and my cut-outs,’ Matisse wrote; ‘I have only reached a form reduced to the essential through greater absoluteness and greater abstraction’.

CEO of Brighton & Hove Museums Hedley Swain said: “It’s a great pleasure to share the famous cut-out works of Henri Matisse through this exhibition. Matisse is a true giant of modern art, and this is an amazing chance to enjoy some of his most vibrant and iconic works at Hove Museum of Creativity.”

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Contact information for press and media

For further information or interviews please contact caroline.sutton@rpmt.org.uk or 03000 290906.

Images

Images and captions can be found here

The following copyright byline must appear in full for each artwork:

© Succession H. Matisse/ DACS 2024

Press use is moderate use of artworks which would be considered to be fair dealing with an artwork (other than a photograph) to report a current event, or fair dealing with an artwork for the purpose of criticism or review, as specified in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 c. 48 Section 30 Subsections (1) – (3). Uses of artworks which comply with the provisions in this section would therefore fall under an exception and do not need to be licensed for the limited specified uses. All other uses should be licensed. Due to the territorial nature of copyright law, prior authorisation may need to be sought for any press uses outside of the UK. In addition, please ensure that all artworks are shown in full, with no cropping, overprinting or manipulation. Sufficient acknowledgement identifying the artwork and copyright holder is also required and DACS can provide you with the correct copyright by-line (contact details below). Non-press use of artworks, highly commercial uses which are not considered to be ‘fair dealing’ or press uses where the above criteria do not apply (including, but not limited to, covers and feature articles; your own printed or online publicity materials; etc) must be licensed before use by the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) as representative of the copyright holder. Further information can be obtained on the DACS website or by contacting the DACS Licensing team on +44 (0)207 780 7550 / licensing@dacs.org.uk.

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Hove Museum of Creativity
Step into a world of toys, cinema, local history, and fine art. Hove Museum of Creativity part of Brighton & Hove Museums, is a family friendly museum with one of the finest craft collections in the UK.
FREE entry
Address: 19 New Church Road, Hove BN3 4AB.
Admission: Free
Opening hours: Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday
10am – 5pm
Telephone: 03000 290 900

Tour continues:

For more information about upcoming venues for this exhibition please check: www.southbankcentre.co.uk/visual-arts/hayward-touring/current

About Hayward Gallery Touring

Hayward Gallery Touring organises contemporary art exhibitions that tour to galleries, museums and other publicly funded venues throughout Britain. In collaboration with artists, independent curators, writers and partner institutions, Hayward Gallery Touring develops imaginative exhibitions that are seen by up to half a million people in over 45 cities and towns each year.

The Southbank Centre

The Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest arts centre occupying a prominent riverside location that sits in the midst of London’s most vibrant cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames. We exist to present great cultural experiences that bring people together and we achieve this by providing the space for artists to create and present their best work and by creating a place where as many people as possible can come together to experience bold, unusual and eye-opening work. We want to take people out of the everyday, every day.

The site has an extraordinary creative and architectural history stretching back to the 1951 Festival of Britain. The Southbank Centre is made up of the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery as well as being home to the National Poetry Library and the Arts Council Collection. It is also home to four Resident Orchestras (London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Sinfonietta and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) and four Associate Orchestras (Aurora Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra and National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain).