By Bill Zeeble, KERA reporter
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-561533.mp3
Dallas, TX – Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter:
In all of 20th century art, Matisse, with Picasso and not many others, was among the greatest and most influential of artists. Prolific and inventive, today he's viewed mostly as a revolutionary master of design and color. One of the paintings that earned him that reputation is Blue Nude, on loan here from the Baltimore Museum.
Dorothy Kosinski, Senior Curator, Painting & Sculpture, Dallas Museum of Art: This is one of those Ah moments when you can open the doors and you have the Blue Nude. This is, for me, like art history 101 , iconic, an AHHH image!
Zeeble: Dallas Museum of Art Curator Dorothy Kosinski stands near the large canvas of a woman reclining on her side. One arm steadies her, the other touches her forehead
Kosinski: The critics were astonished and shocked, and, in a way, in awe of this painting. In a sense, our emphasis in this exhibit, demonstrates what we're try to do that's different. because to a great extent you first see the reclining nude Aurora . That came first.
Zeeble; Then, you can see the sculpture. Kosinski's poised between the large canvas and the small bronze of Aurora, that can easily sit on a table top. Kosinski says the bronze - unlike the painting - is about movement, mass, muscle, the 3-dimensional human form, not about color, mood, or size. Matisse hadn't finished the clay sculpture when it fell and broke. So he rushed to the canvas & kept exploring ideas of a distorted human figure.
Kosinski: The drama of Blue Nude would never have been that way without first working in 3-d. And the sense of its physical presence being so vital. He returns to the sculpture and repairs it and moves forward.
Zeeble: In fact, says exhibit co-curator Steve Nash, with the Sculpture Center, Matisse returns to the same subject - like the reclining figure - over and over, in both art forms. Painting and sculpture influenced each other, but aren't copies. Nash looks at the 4, female, sculpted nude backs in bronze, in the Nasher center. He says there are no equivalents to these relatively giant works, each in excess of 6 feet tall, completed over 21 years. The early work is more realistic looking than the last.
Steve Nash, Curator, Nasher Sculpture Center: You can see the evolution of style that takes place in these works just as is related to reorganization, reinvention of his paintings. They're about scale, about monumentality, about heaviness, the kind of power of these figures, it's so impressive.
Zeeble: And, says Ray Nasher, who's long dreamt of this collaborative show, viewers can be impressed too
Ray Nasher, collector: You really have the opportunity to see both the sculpture, and the paintings as they are. This portrays what I've always wanted , was to point out the greatness of Matisse's sculpture.
Zeeble: The exhibit at the Nasher Sculpture and the Dallas Museum continues through April 29th. Then it goes San Francisco and Baltimore. For KERA 90.1 I'm Bill Zeeble.
Bzeeble@Kera.Org