Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
C Frank Stoop
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/henri-matisse-1593" aria-label="More by Henri Matisse" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Henri Matisse</a>
Nude in Blue
Bequeathed by C. Frank Stoop 1933
actions: postures and motions
adults
arts and entertainment
female
interiors
model
nudes
people
standing
studio
woman
work and occupations
workspaces
<p>Matisse has not disguised the fact that this figure is a model posing in a teaching studio, probably the Académie Carrière in Paris. His principal concern lay with the structure and proportion of the body, and the model’s sinuous pose anticipates the more stylised arabesque figures of his later paintings. Her surroundings are sketched in with broad brushstrokes, becoming abstract planes of colour.</p><p><em>Gallery label, January 2009</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
8 October 2001 – 13 January 2002
2002-01-13
8 October 2001 – 13 January 2002
2002-01-13
2001-10-08
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain)
2001-10-08
Form; The Classical Ideal in Modern Art
Loan-out
6 November 2001 – 26 May 2002
2002-05-26
6 November 2001 – 26 May 2002
2002-05-26
2001-11-06
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2001-11-06
Henri Laurens and Henri Matisse
Collection based display
12 October 2003 – 16 January 2005
2005-01-16
12 October 2003 – 11 January 2004
2004-01-11
2003-10-12
Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, USA)
http://www.DallasMuseumofArt.org
22 February 2004 – 16 May 2004
2004-05-16
2004-02-22
Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, USA)
http://www.artbma.org
19 June 2004 – 19 September 2004
2004-09-19
2004-06-19
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco, USA)
17 October 2004 – 16 January 2005
2005-01-16
2004-10-17
Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, USA)
http://www.artmuseums.harvard.edu
2003-10-12
Matisse Sculpture
Loan-out
18 September 2004 – 16 January 2005
2005-01-16
18 September 2004 – 16 January 2005
2005-01-16
2004-09-18
Museum Folkwang (Essen, Germany)
2004-09-18
Cézanne and the Dawn of Modern Art
Loan-out
29 October 2005 – 9 July 2006
2006-07-09
29 October 2005 – 26 February 2006
2006-02-26
2005-10-29
Kunstsammlung (Dusseldorf, Germany)
19 March 2006 – 9 July 2006
2006-07-09
2006-03-19
Fondation Beyeler (Riehen/Basel, Switzerland)
http://www.beyeler.com
2005-10-29
Henri Matisse - Interiors with Women
Loan-out
21 January 2007 – 13 January 2008
2008-01-13
21 January 2007 – 29 April 2007
2007-04-29
2007-01-21
Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, USA)
http://www.DallasMuseumofArt.org
21 January 2007 – 29 April 2007
2007-04-29
2007-01-21
Nasher Foundation (Dallas, USA)
http://www.NasherSculptureCenter.org
10 June 2007 – 2 September 2007
2007-09-02
2007-06-10
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco, USA)
7 October 2007 – 13 January 2008
2008-01-13
2007-10-07
Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, USA)
http://www.artbma.org
2007-01-21
Matisse: the Painter as Sculptor
Loan-out
7 February 2014 – 25 January 2015
2015-01-25
7 February 2014 – 11 May 2014
2014-05-11
2014-02-07
Kunsthaus Zürich (Zürich, Switzerland)
http://www.kunsthaus.ch/
8 June 2014 – 14 September 2014
2014-09-14
2014-06-08
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, USA)
6 October 2014 – 25 January 2015
2015-01-25
2014-10-06
Montréal Museum of Fine Arts (Montréal, Canada)
http://www.mmfa.qc.ca
2014-02-07
German Expressionism and France
Loan-out
20 November 2015 – 1 May 2016
2016-05-01
20 November 2015 – 1 May 2016
2016-05-01
2015-11-20
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2015-11-20
Matisse The Snail
Collection based display
23 October 2016 – 29 May 2017
2017-05-29
11 March 2017 – 29 May 2017
2017-05-29
2017-03-11
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco, USA)
2016-10-23
Matisse/Diebenkorn
Loan-out
5 November 2016 – 31 August 2025
2025-08-31
11 August 2017 – 4 February 2018
2018-02-04
2017-08-11
Seoul Olympic Museum of Art (Seoul, South Korea)
24 March 2018 – 24 June 2018
2018-06-24
2018-03-24
Yokohama Museum of Art (Yokohama, Japan)
13 July 2018 – 28 October 2018
2018-10-28
2018-07-13
Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (Kaohsiung, Taiwan)
2016-11-05
Nude: art from the Tate collection
Tate partnerships & programmes
27 September 2019 – 19 January 2020
2020-01-19
27 September 2019 – 19 January 2020
2020-01-19
2019-09-27
Kunsthalle Mannheim (Mannheim, Germany)
2019-09-27
Inspiration Matisse
Loan-out
5 August 2024 – 9 August 2026
2026-08-09
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2024-08-05
Monsieur Venus
Collection based display
Nude Study in Blue
support: 730 × 543 mm
frame: 950 × 760 × 110 mm
Bequeathed by <a href="/search?gid=999999963" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">C. Frank Stoop</a> 1933
<p>Matisse has not disguised the fact that this figure is a model posing in a teaching studio, probably the Académie Carrière in Paris. His principal concern lay with the structure and proportion of the body, and the model’s sinuous pose anticipates the more stylised arabesque figures of his later paintings. Her surroundings are sketched in with broad brushstrokes, becoming abstract planes of colour.</p>

Display caption
2009-01-21T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>Henri Matisse</b><span> 1869-1954 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/matisse-nude-study-in-blue-n04718" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04718</span></a> </span><b>Acad</b><b>é</b><b>mie bleue</b><span> (Nude Study in Blue) </span><i>c</i><span>.1899-1900 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Oil on canvas, 28 3/4 x 21 3/8 (73 x 54)</span>
<br/><span>Inscribed 'Henri-Matisse' b.l.</span>
<br/><span>Bequeathed by C. Frank Stoop 1933</span>
<br/><i>Prov:</i><span>
'La Peau de l'Ours', Paris; 'Peau de l'Ours' sale, Drouot, Paris, 2 March 1914, lot 31; bt. Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, 900 frs.; Kurt Vollmoeller, Basle, 17 March 1914; C. Frank Stoop, London, </span><i>c</i><span>.1930</span>
<br/><i>Exh:</i><span>
</span><i>Henri-Matisse</i><span>, Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, June-July 1931 (5) as 'Académie Bleue' 1899, lent by Frank Stoop; </span><i>Impressionists and After</i><span>, Birmingham City Art Gallery, October-November 1947 (no catalogue); </span><i>Matisse 1869-1954</i><span>, Hayward Gallery, London, July-September 1968 (17, repr.)</span>
<br/><i>Lit:</i><span>
Albert C. Barnes and Violette de Mazia, </span><i>The Art of Henri-Matisse</i><span>
(New York-London 1933), No.11, p.432, repr. p.230; Alfred H. Barr, Jr., </span><i>Matisse: his Art and his Public</i><span>
(New York 1951), pp.48, 531, 557; Gaston Diehl, </span><i>Henri Matisse</i><span> (Paris 1954), pp.24, 159</span>
<br/><i>Repr:</i><span>
</span><i>Cahiers d'Art</i><span>, 1931, p.236; Alan Bowness, </span><i>Matisse and the Nude</i><span> (London 1968), pl.1 in colour </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>This picture has usually (and perhaps correctly) been dated 1899, but when Matisse was shown a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/photograph" title="Glossary definition for 'Photograph'"><span>photograph</span></a> by Frank McEwen in 1950, he said that it was painted in 1900 in the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/academy" title="Glossary definition for 'Academy'"><span>Académie</span></a> Carrière. It has a label on the back stamped 'La Peau de l'Ours' and inscribed '153. Henri-Matisse | 1910 | Etude de femme (de l'atelier Carrière)', and the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a> bears the stamp of a paint dealer in the Rue de Rennes, where the Académie Carrière was situated. Another painter at work at his easel can be seen in the background. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>The Académie Carrière was an atelier run by an Italian where Carrière came to correct every week; it had the advantage that the more daring pupils were allowed to work without interference. Matisse worked there from 1899 until it closed some months later (in 1900?) and executed a number of studies of the nude model which like this are very bold in colour. He seems to have used this picture as a study for his first completed figure <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/sculpture" title="Glossary definition for 'Sculpture'"><span>sculpture</span></a>, 'Madeleine I' of 1901, just as he used several similar pictures of the male model Bevilaqua as studies for his sculpture 'The Serf' of the same period (see Barr, op.cit., p.48). However the sculpture has the arms folded across the breasts, instead of being extended downwards. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>This <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> originally belonged to La Peau de l'Ours, an association of eight (later expanded to eleven) young collectors formed in 1904 for the joint purchase of works by outstanding young painters. The sale of their collection in March 1914 was one of the principal artistic events of the year. This picture was bought then or shortly afterwards on Kurt Vollmoeller's behalf by his brother-in-law the well-known German painter Hans Purrmann, who was one of Matisse's most devoted supporters from 1905 onwards, organised his painting school and became its 'student manager', arranged his first one-man show in Berlin and sold his pictures to German collectors. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><span>Ronald Alley, </span><i>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</i><span>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.491, reproduced p.491</span>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-15T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults arts and entertainment female interiors model nudes people standing studio woman work and occupations workspaces