Curated by Stephanie D’Alessandro and John Elderfield
The formula is virtually ideal: Subject a landmark painting to long, deep analysis both historical and forensic—with the close collaboration of the conservation studio—and use those findings to reinterpret a crucial body of the artist’s work. If the painting in question is Henri Matisse’s Bathers by a River, which the artist reworked multiple times between 1909 and 1917, the results promise to be thrilling. Well over a hundred objects from the 1910s in all media will be assembled for this joint project between the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. No shortage of ingenuity and expertise will be lavished on a sustained consideration of the artist’s working process, characterized during this phase by searching, self-critical analysis of his slow progress.
