Matisse

The name of Henri Matisse (1869—1954) is associated with an entire era in the history of European art. Pablo Picasso characterized the work of his rival with one phrase: «Matisse has always been unique and inimitable». For the first time, the biography reveals Matisse not as serene and self-confident, but as doubtful, suffering, misunderstood by the public and his own relatives; not as a dangerous anarchist and savage, but as a cultured, intelligent, educated person who loves poetry and can discuss art better than any critic. Practical and conservative in life, romantic and rebellious in creativity — such is the reformer of 20th-century art, an artist who managed to simplify painting, in the intellectual bestseller by British biographer Hilary Spurling, who received the prestigious literary award «Whitebread» for her work, which became the «Book of the Year» in England in 2006 and has been translated into many languages.