MFAH exhibit looks at modern art’s colorful origins

In 1905, painter Henri Matisse invited young Parisian artist André Derain to join him in the French fishing village of Collioure. Inspired by the exquisite light of the Mediterranean, the two men spent the summer painting, sketching and creating other artworks that would change the course of art history.

That brief moment in time—just nine weeks—is the subject of a new exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston called “Vertigo of Color,” opening Feb. 25. During that summer, both Derain and Matisse explored radical uses of color, unburdened by traditional techniques and styles.

A few months after their stint in Collioure, both Derain and Matisse exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in Paris, where “critics were astonished by the audacity of the works,” said MFAH director Gary Tinterow during a media walkthrough before the exhibit’s official opening.

One critic referred to the artists as “wild beasts” or fauves in French, which gave the movement its name: Fauvism.

“We can trace the foundations of Modernism to the revelations of that summer,” Tinterow said.

The exhibit chronicles the experiments Derain, 25, and Matisse, 36, made during that time. Instead of painting in realistic colors—blue skies, for example, or verdant countrysides—the artists worked with color to evoke feeling more than anything else. Matisse was especially fond of pink.

Loosely organized by theme and time, the show, which originated at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, includes numerous landscapes, portraits, and photographs of both Collioure and the artists. The village itself is a main character in the works, as is Matisse’s wife Amélie, who served as a model for both men. A large photograph in the exhibit’s first room shows Collioure as it was then, a primitive fishing village at the foothills of the Pyrenees where most residents spoke Catalan, not French. The show also opens with two portraits: one of Matisse painted by Derain, and one of Derain painted by Matisse.

“Vertigo of Color” highlights the difference in working process of the two men. Derain mostly made paintings, experimenting with styles—sometimes fully abstract, sometimes more realistic—while Matisse made watercolors and sketches, studies which he intended to complete later while back in Paris. There are other hints as to their respective methods. Some canvases have tiny pinholes in the corners, indicating they were mounted on stretchers in order to dry. That’s a clue that at least some of the works were painted in situ and then transported back to the artists’ studios.

At least two paintings, displayed side by side, seem to reference each other. One is a portrait of Amélie sitting on a rock, painted by Matisse. The other, by Derain, depicts Matisse working at an easel outdoors, with Amélie in front of him, sitting on a similar rock. Letters from both artists to friends and family back home help fill in the gaps of their intentions, artistic struggles, and practices during the time they were on the coast.

“We’re very very lucky to have those letters,” Met curator Dita Amory said. (Amory co-curated the exhibit with the MFAH’s consulting curator of European art Ann Dumas.)

But the main theme of the exhibit is the unbridled use of color, as the show’s name implies. With the brilliance of the light in the French Mediterranean, the artists were “liberated to use color in a non-naturalistic way,” according to Dumas.

“They wanted to free themselves of the expectations of the French Academy,” Dumas said. Both artists were anxious about how their revolutionary work would be received. In fact, up to that point, Matisse had hardly sold any work at all, Amory added.

They were right to be nervous, as their reception at the Salon d’Automne proved. But, the reception also gave the artists notoriety and permitted other artists to experiment with new styles and ways of using color.

“Many artists, upon seeing their works at the Salon, were liberated,” Amory said. Dumas added that by the 1906 Salon d’Automne, the attitude around the new style had softened. By 1908, the Fauvist movement had fizzled out, giving way to Abstract Expressionism, Cubism, and other avant-garde art movements. 

The show consists of more than 60 paintings, on loan from about 40 different institutions. Tinterow spoke of the “absolute feat” the curators accomplished in bringing so many works together from so many different sources.

He also spoke of how the Fauvism movement directly influenced many other works on display at the MFAH, specifically “Multiplicity,” an exhibit that opened on Feb. 18 and features collages made by contemporary Black American artists. Perhaps to invite such comparisons, the gallery for “Vertigo” is situated right next to the gallery for “Multiplicity.”

“‘Multiplicity’ is inconceivable without Fauvism,” he said.

“Vertigo of Color” is on view through May 27. Find out more at the MFAH’s website.