Henri Matisse: Unmasked
An exhibition at the Heard Museum tells the story of an unlikely spiritual connection between famed French painter Henri Matisse and the indigenous people of the Arctic.
There’s a side to famed French artist Henri Matisse that many don’t know. Celebrated for his sensuous approach to color and works such as Blue Nude, Woman with a Hat, Le Bonheur de Vivre and La Danse, an important era in the groundbreaking artist’s life widely remains a mystery to the general public and art historians alike. Until now, that is.
On view through February 3 at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Yua: Henri Matisse and the Inner Arctic Spirit tells the unlikely story of Matisse and the indigenous people of the Arctic.
Co-curated by Sean Mooney, curator of the Rock Foundation, and Chuna Mcintyre, a Yup’ik artist, storyteller and dancer, this is the first-ever exhibition to restore the original cultural practice of mated pairs of Yup’ik masks. In addition to the masks, Matisse’s original black-and-white portraits of Inuit people, photographs, film, ephemera and other cultural objects will also be on display. The Heard Museum is the first and only venue to see these works together, side by side.
“[Matisse] understood on a basic level of creativity the importance of the masks,” says Mcintyre. “There are masks that belong to his family in the exhibition. You can see from looking at his works that he was inspired by these pieces.”
Matisse’s connection to the Yup’ik, which translates to “real people,” goes far beyond himself and is, for the most part, a family affair.
During World War II, Georges Duthuit—matisse’s son-in-law—moved from France to New York. Surrounded by fellow European expatriates, artists and intellectuals, Duthuit soon became exposed to vast collections of Native American art, which was of particular interest to surrealist artists at the time. It wasn’t long before Duthuit had his own collection of Native American art and artifacts, including several Yup’ik masks.
After the war, Duthuit returned to France, bringing his collection with him.
Meanwhile during the war, Duthuit’s wife and Matisse’s daughter, Marguerite, stayed behind in France and joined the French Resistance. In 1944 she was imprisoned, tortured and interrogated by the Gestapo. Matisse, in his 70s at this point, didn’t know if he would ever see his daughter again. Fortunately, Marguerite was able to escape during transport to a death camp. She returned to the South of France in 1945, where Matisse lived during the final years of his life.
A few years earlier, Matisse became ill with duodenal cancer, which he had to have multiple operations for, leaving him bedridden and confined to his wheelchair for large amounts of time. This, combined with years without seeing his only daughter, significantly changed the artist’s life.
“It’s a moment when—because of his health and the war—his work changes a lot.” says Mooney.
A couple of years after Marguerite returned to the South of France, Matisse began working on his final masterpiece, Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence, in 1948. From the chapel’s exterior to even the smallest details of decoration, Matisse designed every aspect of the building.
“The chapel is such an incredible space because it’s like you’re walking into a work of art,” says Mooney. “Everything in the chapel is Matisse’s creation. It’s like walking into a painting. It’s really incredible.”
During this time, Marguerite approached him about drawing illustrations for Une Fête en Cimmérie, a book her husband, Duthuit, was writing about artifacts he had collected—including the Yup’ik masks from his time in New York—and the Arctic. Matisse eagerly accepted Marguerite’s request.
“It’s not just the masks that Matisse sees, it’s that [Marguerite] asked him to do it,” says Mooney.
Thanks to images of Arctic people from books lent to him by Duthuit, Yup’ik masks, other artifacts and even films like Nanook of the North, Matisse became fascinated by “yua”—a Yup’ik word meaning the spiritual interconnectedness of all living things, relating to popular notions of reincarnation.
“Although [Duthuit and Marguerite] only asked him to do a few drawings, because of the way that Matisse works, he ends up doing dozens of sketches,” says Mooney. “Matisse’s process at this point in his life is such that he draws the portrait subject over and over again.”
The more that Matisse drew a particular subject, the more they would transform. For example, in one of Matisse’s sketches for Une fête en Cimmérie, as he