Matisse: Painter as Sculptor

I love tight, focused shows that dig deeply into a particular aspect of an artist's oeuvre. Unfortunately, Matisse: Painter as Sculptor, at the Baltimore Museum of Art, is not that kind of show. Instead it's bloated, overarching, and often forces connections between Matisse's paintings and sculptures where none exist. If the exhibition had been a third the size, and if it had focused on four or five groupings of work, or if it had focused on how Matisse used sculpture in his painting, this would have been a much smarter, better exhibition. Instead it's a textbook example of what happens when too many curators (six) group-think.

What a missed opportunity. If the entire show had been done from works in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art, which has one of the world's half-dozen best Matisse collections, it might have been the show of the year. The real revelation of this exhibit is just how deep and remarkable the Baltimore Matisse collection is.

Ultimately it wasn't clear to me exactly what this show was intended to be. First, it is not a show about how and why Matisse incorporated his sculpture into his paintings. (That would have been fascinating, but would have required difficult loans from Russia and impossible loans from the Barnes.)

Is it a sculpture retrospective with some paintings as supporting evidence? Is it an exhibition intended to demonstrate how Matisse's sculpture influenced his paintings? Or vice versa? And when the show opens with Matisse's quote about how sculpture will always be secondary to his painting, should we consider the leitmotif of the show to prove that out? Because it does... but that seems like a thin thread on which to put a lot of bronze. Matisse: Painter as Sculptor essentially seems like an excuse for some big museums to aggregate a lot of Matisses.

For the rest of the week I'll discuss aspects of Matisse: Painter as Sculptor: Some things I liked, and some things I didn't.

Related: The catalogue, however, is superb. And Time's Richard Lacayo said this was his second-favorite show of the year.