Description
The Musée Matisse Nice and the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris are devoting a major exhibition to two major designers who have never ceased to rethink the 20th century...
If Henri Matisse (1869-1954) and Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008) had one thing in common, it would undoubtedly be their desire to transgress the established boundaries between the "fine arts" and the "applied arts". For Matisse, decorative prints and their dynamism become the means to create a pictorial space that "goes beyond the limits of the tangible[1]"; for Yves Saint Laurent, painting offers the possibility of moving from plan to volume, of conceiving of clothing as a mobile that unfolds in space, an art in motion. Sewing and painting are gestures that contribute to "the same experimentation with line, the same precision in handling contrasts between materials and volume[2]", and although Henri Matisse and Yves Saint Laurent never met, the dialogue between them seems obvious today.
The exhibition highlights these correspondences and brings the works of the two artists into dialogue. It draws on the rich collections of the Musée Matisse Nice and the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent, complemented by prestigious French and international loans.
Bringing together 160 works - haute-couture garments, popular traditions, paintings, drawings, textiles, accessories and archival documents - the Musée Matisse Nice offers an original itinerary 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.
