2.  One of the most important painters of the 20 th century  Born in 1869 in France  Considered by many to be the father of modern art

3.  At the age of 20 Henri was studying to be a lawyer when he became very ill. He had to have surgery and was bedridden. Henri was very bored just lying around so his mother gave him a box of paints and brushes so he would have something to do. When he recovered he did not want to go back to law school, instead he went straight to art school!  He even drew and painted on his legal papers when he was a lawyer.

4.  Matisse wanted to move beyond painting carefully drawn figures in dark colors that students were required to do  One of his teachers, Gustave Moreau, felt Matisse was destined for greatness and encouraged him to try new things and use his imagination  Matisse loved to travel to bright sunny places. His artwork was influenced by and his surroundings other artists  Art critics thought Henri and his friends painted like "Fauves" (a French word for wild beasts) because they used bold bright and unusual colors. Critics thought the "Fauvists" would never be successful artists, but they were wrong.

5.  Matisse approached painting in his own unique way. He loved bright vibrant colors and energetic shapes.  Matisse became interested in “flat” pictures emphasizing lines, decorative pattern and color  He experienced with many art styles. He explored painting, sculpting, printmaking, bookmaking, and paper cuts.  Henri was known for trying a new style by painting paper and then cutting it out and pasting it into the painting.  It was not until his forties that the public began to take interest in buying his paintings  Matisse changed his style a great deal over his 60 year career  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwH-eDyWm0k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwH-eDyWm0k

6.  Due to ill health, Matisse was too weak to stand at his easel  He picked up a pair of scissors and began to cut paper.  He cut out shapes and moved them around until he found the perfect balance of color and shape.  His vibrant paper cut creations are some of the greatest graphic artworks  http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=qlnBcaZEGb0 http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=qlnBcaZEGb0

7.  This bold and playful image is one of twenty plates Matisse created to illustrate his book "Jazz."  Cut and pasted colored papers, which were then printed using a stencil technique known as "pochoir.“  The mythological figure Icarus is presented in a simplified form floating against a royal blue nighttime sky.  Matisse's flat, abstracted forms and large areas of pure color marked an important change in the direction of his later work and ultimately influenced "hard-edge" artists of he 1960s

8.  Throughout his lifetime, he suffered from poor health, but that never stopped him from creating art!  Many pictures were painted from his sick bed so they show the inside of his room and a view of the outdoors through an open window, the rooms had patterned wallpaper, curtains, tablecloths and many everyday objects, there was so much to look at in Matisse's pictures!  In his last years, he even attached a piece of charcoal to a bamboo pole and drew on the walls of his room  Henri Matisse worked on his art for over 60 years and became one of the greatest artists of all time!