Art historians have long debated the extent of Matisse’s influence on Picasso. In this exhibition, Yve-Alain Bois rejects the very question of influence, at least in any normative sense, and instead recasts the relationship as a complex dialogue—an aesthetic chess match—between two grand masters, focusing on the strategic moves made from 1930 until shortly after Matisse’s death in 1954. Drawing on a variety of critical models—from Bakhtin’s “active understanding” to Bloom’s “misprision” and “daemonization”—Bois tellingly pairs more than 100 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper made by these “gentle rivals,” often in direct response to each other’s work. Bois’s new study, Matisse and Picasso, accompanies the show Jan. 31–May 2.
