Henri Matisse was born 152 years ago today.
A French artist known for his use of color and his fluid and original draughtsmanship, Matisse was also a printmaker and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter.
Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture.
Although he was initially labelled a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting.
His mastery of the expressive language of color and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.
Matisse died in 1954 in Nice, France.
Above, Matisse in 1933
Blue Nude (II), 1952
Painting by Henri Matisse
Dance, 1910
Painting by Henri Matisse