BMA to open exhibition of Mattise's early etchings Nov. 5

The Baltimore Museum of Art will display some of French artist Henri Matisse’s first etchings in a new exhibition this fall.

The exhibition, which will open Nov. 5, 2023 and run through April 21, 2024, is titled “Etched in Memory: Matisse’s Early Portraits.”

“Etched in Memory perfectly embodies the vision of The Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies, inviting our community to see works that are rarely shown and offering new insight into Matisse,” said Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director, in a statement. “Matisse’s artmaking and legacy is unparalleled in continuing to move so many and inspire artists and thinkers from all over the world. These beautiful and intimate portraits provide a unique glimpse of him as both a person and artist living and working during a perilous time.”

Friends, neighbors and refugees during World War I often gathered at Matisse’s home, where many served as subjects for the artist’s early etchings. Fourteen of these works will be on display in the exhibition, with subjects including Madame Matisse, Josette Gris, Walter Pach, and others.

Though Matisse is known for working primarily with female models throughout his career, his early etchings depict some of his male subjects.

In addition to his well-known paintings, Matisse also produced drypoints, etchings, lithographs, linoleum cuts, and woodcuts throughout his career, including more than 50 portraits of family members, friends, fellow artists and their wives, and others starting in 1914.

Matisse used a needle to draw through an acid-resistant ground layer – which comprised beeswax, bitumen, and resin – to reveal lines of bare metal of the copper plate below. He would then submerge the plate in acid to etch the drawing into the metal; use a solvent to remove the remnants of the ground layer; and ink and print the plate.

“Etched in Memory,” which draws from the BMA’s collection of Matisse works, will be presented in the museum’s Jay McKean Fisher Gallery in The Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies.

The exhibition is curated by Katy Rothkopf, The Anne and Ben Cone Memorial Director of The Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies and Senior Curator of European Painting and Sculpture at the Baltimore Museum of Art, in consultation with Thomas Primeau, The Charles K. Williams, II, Senior Conservator of Works of Art on Paper at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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Marcus Dieterle is the managing editor of Baltimore Fishbowl. He returned to Baltimore in 2020 after working as the deputy editor of the Cecil Whig newspaper in Elkton, Md. He can be reached at [email protected]... More by Marcus Dieterle