Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts throughout the opening decades of the twentieth century. Along with Picasso, Matisse helped to define and influence radical contemporary art in the twentieth century. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, which he displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.