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| Matisse in front of window screen, source: http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/matisse-in-the-studio. |
Over the week-end DH, son and I viewed
Matisse in the Studio at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, on view from 9 April 2017 until 9 July 2017. The exhibit pairs actual objects collected by Matisse - vases, African sculpture, small tables, etc. - with paintings and other works featuring, or inspired by, the objects. Images from the exhibit can be seen in reviews in the
Wall Street Journal and the
Boston Globe. For me the highlight was the North African window screens Matisse acquired during his trips to Morocco and which informed his work.
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| Window screen, maker unknown, North Africa, 19th - early 20th c. |
This type of North African textile is called a
haiti; these luxury products were made by professional male needleworkers for wealthy clients. Layered cloth is cut and edged; the geometric designs recall carved wood and stone window screens. Interestingly, the Indianapolis Museum of Art has a
collection of these and other Moroccan textiles, purchased by Indiana native Admiral Albert P. Niblack when he was stationed in Gibraltar beginning in 1917. The Niblack family later bequeathed thousands of Moroccan, European and Indonesian textiles to the museum.
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| Fabric window screen, detail. |
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| Fabric window screen, detail. |
Another window screen is paired with a painting of two women in a space which isn't so much a room as a cocoon of textiles. The window screen in the painting is in the exhibit. A note on the painting title - the term
moorish is now viewed as part of the vocabulary of
orientalism, or the Western world's patronizing, romanticized way of viewing the Maghreb region of North African and other non-Western cultures.
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| The Moorish Screen, 1921. |
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| Window screen, maker unknown, late 19th - early 20th c. |
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| Window screen, detail. |
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| Gallery view. |
Finally, one of Matisse's great late still life paintings,
Interior with Egyptian Canvas, created in 1948, hangs next to the tent hanging depicted in the still life. I missed the 2005 exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum on
Matisse and his textiles, so was happy to have this glimpse in Boston.
