Matisse exhibition in Lyubertsy with 120 lithographs and cut-outs, 30 October to 24 January

Henri Matisse in Lyubertsy

120 portraits and cut-outs by Matisse will be shown at an exhibition in the Lyubertsy Museum and Exhibition Complex. The combination of 120 lithographs with fragments of Matisse's texts reveals him as both artist and philosopher: for him art was not merely a craft but a path to inner freedom.

Matisse himself said: “One must be able to find joy in everything: in the sky, in the trees, in the flowers. Flowers bloom everywhere for everyone who only wishes to see them.” Each work is the result of a titanic search: by removing everything “superfluous”, Matisse sought the greatest possible emotional impulse.

The chief treasures of the exhibition:

- portraits in which Matisse caught not outward likeness but the feeling awakened by the sitter;
- his experiments with perspective, rhythm and light: in Matisse the window becomes a “space within a space”;
- cut-outs made from coloured paper and scissors, late works in which colour sounds like a symphony and lines pulsate with music;
- the book Jazz, the summit of his experiments, shown in the exhibition in its entirety.

The lithographs were produced at the legendary Atelier Mourlot, the most prestigious workshop in the world, where printing was approached as an art. The exhibition will run from 30 October to 24 January