Matisse, 1941-1954 review – hit after glorious hit in a show of life-enhancing genius

2026-03-20 - 13:39

Grand Palais, Paris An epic collection of the artist’s final 13 years of work explodes with the stunning colours and spiky cutouts that redefined art Forget the joy and energy of youth – your best days might yet be ahead. Henri Matisse’s were, even when he barely made it out of surgery alive in his early 70s as war was breaking out across France. Sitting in his wheelchair, his hand wobblier and weaker than ever, his body scarcely able to muster the strength to stand and paint, he reinvented himself and reshaped modern art in the process. The Grand Palais’s huge exploration of the last years of Matisse’s life – from his surgery in 1941 to his death in 1954 – is a dizzying, joyous celebration of colour, form, line, light and then a whole bunch more colour. It’s so good, so beautiful, so totally overwhelming. It was always bound to be – it’s Matisse, with all the resources of France’s vast collection of Matisse works. It’s a show full of hits. Continue reading...