Pierre Matisse. Un marchand d'art à New York

The exhibition at the Matisse Museum revisits the exceptional career of Pierre Matisse, the son of Henri Matisse, who became one of the most important art dealers of the 20th century.

For nearly fifty years, the Pierre Matisse Gallery played a considerable role in the defence of French and European modern art in the United States during a period that shaped the great American private and institutional collections. Through more than three hundred exhibitions, a whole generation of European artists was able to exist on the New York scene and contribute to its dynamism: Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Balthasar Balthus, Alberto Giacometti and Jean Dubuffet, to name but a few.

The exhibition and its catalogue retrace this odyssey through just over fifty works by twenty-two of the gallery's key artists. These works are divided into four sections which retrace the main milestones in the history of the Pierre Matisse Gallery between 1931 and 1989. Around the works, the path of this journey will be materialised by all the catalogues of the gallery, often real typographic treasures, with magnificent and rare folios, which he creates with the artists themselves. The exhibition also offers a sensitive understanding of Pierre Matisse's actions, through his friendships and commitments with artists, based on numerous archives, correspondence and photographs.