3/5 Stars

Confined to a wheelchair and restricted by further disabilities, Henri Matisse was forced to abandon painting towards the end of his life. A true artist, he did not let this prevent him from continuing to create masterpieces. The solution he found was to cut shapes from coloured paper and arrange them as images on a blank page, and some of the results can currently be seen in the Bowery gallery, Headingly, alongside contemporary responses to the works.

It will come as no surprise to learn that the Matisse lithographs are the highlight of the exhibition. Half the prints are a collection of undefined shapes in tropical colours; lushness evoked through minimalism. The rest are composed primarily from the colour blue, which to Matisse represented volume. And volume is what these images speak, particularly the iconic ‘Blue Nude’ sequence, which depict the simultaneous solidity and fluidity of a voluptuous female form entirely through disconnected cobalt shards. 

As for the response works, there’s something to be said for each of them, but not quite enough. Garth Simmons is perhaps the most successful, transferring Matisse’s technique onto the sort of large space the master was no longer able to employ by this period, but the result is towards the chaotic end of the spectrum, rather than simply being striking. Bronwen Baynes adopts two of the Matisse’s themes: the female figure and geometry, and separates them to create collages of nude women, modesty preserved by triangular spikes, a decision which seems to diffuse the brilliance of Matisse’s work, rather than celebrate it. Phillipa Dyrlaga’s paper cut-out hanging is both pretty and relevant to the exhibition, but it would be interesting to see the technique applied to a subject less twee than the natural scene she’s chosen to depict here. Least effective are Briony Mullan’s indulgent series of block-coloured canvas paintings, which, though vivid, bear little relation to Matisse’s application of colour or his techniques as displayed here. They are also the only works in the exhibition without any discernible subject matter, a vacuity reinforced by the fact that each piece is labelled ‘Untitled’.

A wall between lithographs bears the Matisse quotation “I know that only much later will people realise how much what I do today was in accord with the future.” If this exhibition achieves anything, it is surely to prove this statement true.

Rachel Groocock