The Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse, Volume 1: The Early Years, 1869-1908 [Paperback]

Hilary Spurling (Author)

Book Description

Series: Unknown Matisse | Publication Date: October 1, 2001

Hilary Spurling presents a thorough and riveting account of Matisse's early life, from his beginnings as the son of shopkeepers in Flanders through his impoverished days as a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Tracing Matisse's life through his thirties, Spurling describes how the artist's stubborn northern temperament helped sustain him through many challenges, both artistic and financial, as he found his way as a painter.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Matisse was born in 1869 in northern France and grew up in Bohain-en-Vermandois, near the Belgian border, on the drab, cold, wet beet fields of French Flanders. The same area, culturally and geographically speaking, had produced Vincent van Gogh sixteen years before." Thus begins the first full biography of an artist who, more than any other, is associated with Mediterranean heat, brilliant color and light, and languid, luxurious interiors. As author Hilary Spurling points out, an open window is one of Matisse's frequent motifs. Given the climate of his youth, that image speaks more of escape than of the sea air of the French Riviera.

If all biographers wrote with Spurling's warmth, empathy, and intelligence, no one would likely want to read any other kind of book. The Unknown Matisse is thoroughly researched, with pages devoted to minutiae that Spurling imparts with wit and style, making every nuance of Matisse's early development fascinating. She tells too the story of Matisse's family life (Mme. Matisse risked her respectable reputation by adopting Henri's first, illegitimate daughter), his brilliant ideas about art, and the years it took for his paintings to find their rightful audience. It was her intention finally to give as much weight to Matisse's life as has been given to his work, but in the process of examining the man she sheds new light on the art as well. --Peggy Moorman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Despite Matisse's prestige in the annals of 20th-century art, there has been no biography published for the general reader until this hefty first of two volumes. "Unknown" as much for that omission as for his family's "invincible discretion," Matisse has been allowed to face posterity as a less interesting, less dynamic character than some of his contemporaries. It is no surprise, then, that the stock techniques of sympathetic biography seem a bit more defensive than usual here as Spurling (author of Ivy: The Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett) tries to counter her subject's reputation as the prickliest, stodgiest hedonist ever to lift a paintbrush. Challenging conventional views of Matisse that acknowledge his greatness as an artist "while simultaneously belittling him as a human being," Spurling offers anecdote after anecdote illustrating his quaint mischievousness and selfless encouragement of other artists. She does a remarkable job of evoking the northern textile town of Bohain-en-Vermandois, where Matisse first assimilated the stringent demands of survival and acquired a reciprocal appreciation of luxury and irreverence. Still, when he decided at age 20 to become a painter, it was as drastic a rebellion as he seemed capable of, and Spurling never quite accounts for Matisse's transformation from a Beaux-Arts wannabe into a reluctant leader of the avant-garde. Her discovery that the "Humbert Affair" of 1902, a financial and political scandal of massive proportions, directly implicated Matisse's in-laws and, by extension, Matisse himself, makes for a gripping read and reveals much about the artist's early development. Six years later, when Harmony in Red emerges out of the artist's intense struggles with the art establishment and with his own radical impulses, the reader is as exhilarated as his biographer could possibly desire. 150 b&w photos; 24-page color insert not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 505 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; First Edition edition (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520222032
• ISBN-13: 979-0520222037
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,205,697 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An extraordinary new view of Matisse, November 8, 1998

By 

[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse: The Early Years, 1869-1908 (Hardcover)

When I first heard that Hilary Spurling was planning to write Henri Matisse's biography I wondered what a literary English biographer could possible tell me about my intensely French artistic grandfather. Four years later the answer turned out to be a great deal more than I ever imagined.

Previous Matisse biographies have been written by art historians, art critics, and art lovers; all have skimmed quickly over the few facts that were generally known about his life in order to focus as quickly as possible on various aspects of his art. Ms. Spurling, on the other hand, approached Matisse's life as a professional biographer, and spent a great deal of time on original research.

The results are absolutely astonishing. For any one interested in Matisse's work, this book will be a revelation. It is beautifully written, excrutiatingly accurate, intensely documented, and filled with surprising and important insights about his life and work. It gives us a real understanding of what it was like to be this particular painter at the turn of the century in France. The book is almost like a mystery story, packed with surprising developments and clearly drawn characters. It is also beautifully illustrated with many family photographs as well as numerous black and white and color reproductions of his paintings, sculptures, and drawings.

Once started, this is a very hard book to put down. I couldn't recommend it more highly.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Matisse's Colors, November 28, 2001

By 

schapmock (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse, Volume 1: The Early Years, 1869-1908 (Paperback)

This is a genuinely inspiring biography, clearly written and deeply felt, powerfully communicating the revolutionary ideas of what painting could and should be that drove, and were driven by, Henri Matisse. Spurling vividly describes Matisse's struggles to balance his need to paint with financial reality and his society's disdain, often using the artist's own letters and recollections to depict his growing obsession with color and impatience with representation.

Although I eagerly await the second volume, the true measure of Spurling's success is my anticipation in revisiting Matisse's paintings -- my enjoyment of his work has been increased immeasurably by reading this book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A continuously enthralling and insightful biography, January 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse: The Early Years, 1869-1908 (Hardcover)

This account of the life of Matisse up until the age of 40 is a revelation. His early years in the dour industrial flatlands of northern France, the intensity of his struggle to find his own true artistic vision, the long years of poverty amd of sometimes crippling insecurity - all are described with sensitivity and narrative drive. Spurling's account of how the Humbert affair nearly destroyed Matisse is a triumph of historical detective work. And, set against all his trials, she movingly depicts the love and strength he derived from his marriage to Amelie. Finally, right at the end, we are in Paris in the first decade of the 20th century, when Matisse and Picasso between them revolutionized western art. It doesn't get any better than this.