Press Release

November 8, 2006
Contact Vicki Brodnax at 407-646-2526

HENRI MATISSE'S 'JAZZ' PORTFOLIO AT THE CORNELL

Winter Park, FL – The Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College opens its Winter/Spring exhibition season on Friday, January 19 with several exhibitions which celebrate mid-century abstraction and late twentieth-century contemporary art.  The exhibition Henri Matisse’s ‘Jazz’, (1943 - 44) features the folio of twenty prints of Matisse’s fanciful cut-out images long considered a masterpiece of modernism.  Jazz will be shown at the Cornell January 19 through May 20. A private preview and reception for the media, VIPs, and museum members, will be held on Thursday, January 18, from 6-8 PM.

About the folio: In order to avoid the expected bombardment of Nice, Matisse moved to the remote French hill town of Vence, and there began the playful Jazz project, commissioned by the Parisian publisher Tériade.  For Matisse, the cut-paper corresponded to the spirit of jazz music in its freedom of form and linear verve.  The “cut-outs” sparked a crucial surge in the late years of Henri Matisse’s remarkable career.  Following the innovations employed in Jazz, Matisse never returned to easel painting as he felt that this artistic originality encapsulated his life’s work to master line and color.  This important exhibition is made possible due to the generosity of The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York and The Brossier Company in Winter Park.

On Tuesday, March 6, at 6:30 p.m., Luanne McKinnon, Acting Director and Curator of JAZZ will discuss Matisse’s work in the public talk: “The Circus and the Clown in French Modernism.”  McKinnon has presented her scholarship on Pablo Picasso, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, and other modern masters at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico.