Henri Matisse - La Coiffeur

Art Appreciation

Henri Matisse: La Coiffeur, 1901

When I was doing an internship in Washington, D.C., I spent my Fridays visiting the various museums. One of my favorites, which I visited several times, was the National Gallery of Art.  There I fell in love with art.

I began to appreciate every artist's brush stroke. I looked for patterns. I pictured myself in their painting and tried to feel what they wanted to portray in their work.

I came across La Coiffeur by Henri Matisse. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. I pictured myself, a 21 year old kid from South Texas, in that room watching a beautiful woman fixing her hair in front of a vanity.

I soon became a fan of Henri Matisse and to this day look for his work when visiting other museums.

Born in Nord, France on December 31, 1869, Henri Matisse was a post-impressionist artist known for the dissonant colors in many of his paintings.

His wife, Amelie Noellie Parayre, appeared in a lot of his paintings. Given that they married in 1898, I would make a safe guess that the lady in the painting, La Coiffeur, is Amelie Noellie.


Source: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/matisse_henri.html; http://www.arthistory-famousartists-paintings.com/HenriMatisse.html; Wikipedia