Tom Wesselmann - After Matisse

With his Great American Nudes series of the Sixties, Tom Wesselmann turned the Matissian odalisque into a pop icon. Subsequently, Matisse's work remained a central reference in his search for visual effectiveness and overload. Through a selection of forty-one artworks, the exhibition Tom Wesselmann. After Matisse explores the multiple ways in which the artist expressed his admiration for Matisse, from his first collages in 1959 to his last works, the Sunset Nudes series in the 2000s. They reflect different modes of appropriation: works based on Matisse, direct quotations, or, more profoundly, a Matissian conception of colour and surface.This catalogue investigates Wesselmann's creative processes in the studio and helps to understand the elaborate technique of collage or 3D drawing he used, showing how attentive he was to the question of scale, in small formats as in large-size works. It brings together four significant series of works which testify to the dialogue between this major American Pop artist and Henri Matisse: collages, Great American Nudes, Steel Drawings and Sunset Nudes.