On the occasion of the exhibition “Matisse. 1941–1954” presented at the Grand Palais, Galerie Negropontes Paris dedicates its new space to a collaboration with Maison Matisse, founded in 2019 by Jean-Matthieu Matisse, the painter’s great-grandson. As part of this invitation, the exhibition presents the 1869 collection designed by Alessandro Mendini, Jaime Hayon, and the installation by Ronan Bouroullec & Erwan Bouroullec for Maison Matisse, alongside works by Perrin & Perrin, Ulrika Liljedahl, Éric de Dormael, Agnès Baillon, Linda Oubhi, Tal Lancman & Maurizio Galante, Carmen M. Castaneda, Benjamin Poulanges and Elena Syraka.

Conceived as a contemporary echo of this major retrospective, the exhibition explores essential motifs from Matisse’s universe: the window, dance, the bather, the Mediterranean, flowers, cut-outs, and color through practices in which glass, textile, ceramics, metal, and light engage in dialogue.

Alessandro Mendini’s vases translate Matisse’s decorative spatiality into three-dimensional form. Jaime Hayon, for his part, celebrates the painter’s chromatic magic. His Mediterranean-inspired forms, poised between art and design, make color vibrate. The installation by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, made of terracotta, anodized aluminum, and porcelain, appears like an open window onto the Mediterranean. A further selection of works by the gallery’s artists completes the exhibition and highlights Matisse’s enduring legacy.

The glass works by Perrin & Perrin, from the Window series, also materialize this idea of the window. Their Toscane carpet unfolds across the floor a play of cut-out forms evoking Matisse’s late gouaches from his book Jazz.

Ulrika Liljedahl’s textile work, in blue and white nylon, fluid and airy, recalls both the curtains lifted by the wind in the painter’s Nice interiors and the sea suspended between transparency and light.

Éric de Dormael’s luminous sculpture Carline extends this reflection: its cut metal leaves cast shifting shadows that evoke the cut-outs from the final years of Matisse’s life, turning light and shadow into a drawing in space.

Echoing Matisse’s bathers, filled with color and movement, Agnès Baillon’s graceful and diaphanous swimmers bring an enigmatic note to the exhibition.

The exhibition presents a photograph of the Tulipes perroquet by Tal Lancman, along with porcelain parrots embroidered with colorful and airy organza, created by Tal Lancman & Maurizio Galante in dialogue with the celebrated Tulipes perroquet painted by Matisse in 1905.

With Chroma 6575 IV, Carmen M. Castaneda unfolds a field of deep blue organic forms that evoke Matisse’s Nus bleusand gouaches découpées: the dialogue between solids and voids structures the composition, ornamental repetition asserts a decorative dimension dear to the painter, sequins capture the light like a radiant surface, and Lunéville crochet embroidery transposes the principle of cut-outs into a textile language.

Finally, Elena Syraka’s Matisse Leaf jewelry series, from the Idols collection, extends this tribute into a precious register: stylized 18-carat gold leaves, punctuated with diamonds and paired with semi-precious stones, complete this poetic symbolism.

Conceived as a journey, the exhibition transforms the space into an inner window opening onto an azure, chromatic, and harmonious universe. In dialogue with the Grand Palais retrospective, the gallery thus offers a complementary interpretation: that of a vibrant imagination that continues to inspire contemporary creation.