Henri Matisse The Moroccans, 1916. Image via MoMA.

Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917, at the Museum of Modern Art, features almost 120 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures completed by Henri Matisse within the span of four years.  1913 marks a turning point in Matisse’s evolutionary career: in the twilight of WWI, the artist made a profound move toward conceptual distortion.  He worked in German-occupied France while his brother was in a prison camp and his mother was behind enemy lines–conditions he deemed the “methods of modern construction” that altered the course of his artistic and personal development.

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