At DAM, An Unusual Exhibit For A Familiar Master
DENVER (CBS4) - The Denver Art Museum is taking an unfamiliar approach to the work of a familiar artist.
Anchored by Henri Matisse, the museum's Matisse and Friends exhibit offers visitors a chance to sit in armchairs and on couches to soak in the work of the French artist and that of several other early 20th-century masters.
The "living room" approach, as the museum's master teacher put it, is based on Matisse's idea that art is "like a good armchair" in which a viewer can rest from fatigue.
"So we pulled from that quote and really thought about how great it would be to have armchairs and couches and really give visitors the experience of sitting and looking at paintings as if they were in their own living room," Danielle St. Peter said.
Heinrick said the approach is "an invitation to inhale to have a conversation with a painting."
"That was something when we had our planning process we were really excited about: How do we offer the familiar in an unfamiliar way?" St. Peter said.
Christoph Heinrich, the museum's director, said Matisee was at the center of a group of artists that suddenly found fame in 1905 and 1906 because of their use of bright colors and vivid imagery. They were called "wild beasts" because of their technique.
The exhibit will feature 14 works from Matisse and André Derain, Albert Marquet, Maurice de Vlaminck, Raoul Dufy, Georges Braque and Kees van Dongen. It runs Oct. 12 through Feb. 8 in the museum's Hamilton Building. It is on loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
