Henri Matisse (1869–1954) is regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, and a handful of his works can often be found in numerous exhibitions in Tokyo every year. This upcoming showcase at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, however, is a particularly noteworthy event as it is the first large-scale Matisse retrospective Japan has seen in almost 20 years.
Most of the works are borrowed from the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which boasts one of the world’s most extensive collections of the artist’s work. The roughly 150 works on display range from early oil paintings to sculptures and the paper cut-outs that defined the artist’s self-proclaimed ‘second life’, when intestinal cancer caused him to be bedridden for months at a time