The exhibition "Inspiration Matisse" opens at Kunsthalle Mannheim

Color, form, surface, figure and space – Henri Matisse, the master of painterly innovation, combined these elements in an entirely new way around 1905. His figurative and symbolic reductions bordered on abstraction. The French painter, printmaker and sculptor Matisse (1869– 1954) had a lasting influence on twentieth-century art. Hardly any young artist looking to build on impressionism’s foundations could fail to engage with his oeuvre. In developing and intensifying his means of artistic expression, Matisse continued to work within the European tradition while simultaneously opening himself up to the possibilities offered by oriental and far Eastern art. With an exhibition of around 125 selected paintings, sculptures, pottery and graphic works, the Kunsthalle Mannheim presents Matisse as a pioneer of modernity and an example to his circle of younger contemporaries, whether the French fauvists, the German expressionists