Henri Matisse Cut Outs 2014

What's the big thrill this year in the world of art? Twitter is abuzz and there's good reason for it. Of course, Tate Modern is hosting a Matisse exhibition, starting April 17th.

Henri Matisse Exhibition London http://t.co/Th5EE94HnB At the Henri Matisse exhibition, London art fans can enjoy the most extensive r...

— London Art News (@londonartnews) February 18, 2014

The exhibition, featuring a considerable display of Henri Matisse's cutouts, promises a lot. Reading from Tate Modern's website:

From snowflowers to dancers, circus scenes and a famous snail, the exhibition showcases a dazzling array of 120 works made between 1936 and 1954.

The number of exhibits is not the only outstanding aspect. As the museum points out, not without a dab of pride at being the owner of some of these cutouts, the exhibition of this year makes it possible for a large number of these artworks to stand beside each other for the first time since the date of their creation.

A photograph of Matisse’s studio reveals that these works were initially conceived as a unified whole, and this is the first time they will have been together since they were made.

So the yellow background of the official poster will be a major glow at Tate's, where the Matisse cutouts will be on display until September 7th, after which they leave for New York, where they will be lodged at the Museum of Modern Art for another four months. Plenty of time to pay a visit, or even more than one.

NB: They're even making changes to the usual routine, because (n'est pas?) the Master deserves special treatment.

For the first time at Tate Modern, Sunday evenings will be set aside for a quieter exhibition viewing experience of Matisse: the Cut-Outs, with visitor numbers restricted from 20.00–22.30.0

Wonder how these simple yet greatly evocative paper cutouts were made? Not much technical prowess, but of course, a lot of finesse. Plus, as we know, it's not the maneuver that matters. What's more important is the idea behind the line. See Matisse himself at work, at a late stage in his life, when he had almost completely surrendered to the technique he had made popular:

It's the simplicity of the whole ritual (Matisse, himself a person of many minute rituals): the way the gesture (not the hand!) cuts through the frail material to compose bi-dimensional objects; almost like a child's play.

In the meantime, a smaller exhibition is taking place in Southport, where lithographic copies of Matisse's cutouts are on display for a month (ending on the 16th of March).
And they're not alone. In a few days, an exhibition is opening in Ferrara as well, focused on Matisse's paintings from earlier stages of his career. For those who understand Italian, here's a video I've just fished off YouTube:

Quite a year for Matisse, indeed. 145 years from his birth, 60 years from his death. Richly marked by various events of this kind, the world over.