New Matisse Exhibit Explores the Artist’s devotion to his Daughter

One of my favorite exhibit spaces, Le musée d’art moderne de Paris, currently features over 100 works by Henri Matisse devoted to his daughter, Marguerite. The exhibit runs through August 24, 2025, so you might want to stop by if you plan to visit Paris this summer. I have to admit that I’m not much of a Matisse fan, but if I had the opportunity, this is an exhibit I would try to attend.

Matisse et Marguerite, le regard d’un père explores the relationship between Matisse and his oldest child, Marguerite, who was born out of wedlock in 1894. Matisse was a young student of sculpture at the time and his relationship with a model, named Caroline Joblaud, may have yielded an unexpected byproduct. Marguerite’s birth certificate only mentions her mother and indeed, it wasn’t until 1897 that Matisse recognized her as his own.

However, in 1898, when Matisse married Amélie Parayre, the newlyweds took Marguerite into their home, and she grew up under the same roof as her half-brothers, Jean and Pierre. Thereafter, it seems, Marguerite and her father formed a deep bond that closely united them until each took their last breath—Henri in 1954 and Marguerite in 1982.

Marguerite was a fragile child, battling various respiratory problems. At age seven, she contracted diphtheria, and doctors performed a tracheotomy to open her windpipe. The operation left noticeable scarring with lingering discomfort and pain until 1920, when a second operation eliminated these issues. In the interim, Marguerite wore high-collared blouses and chokers to hide the disfigured tissue on her neck. These fashion elements help identify Marguerite from other models rendered in Matisse’s Fauvist style.

Marguerite soon became her father’s favorite model and eventually blossomed into his closest collaborator, critic, and advisor. Rather than going to school, she spent her days in Matisse’s studio aiding her father’s exploration of various styles and techniques. Like Victor Hugo and his daughter Leopoldine, the two shared a deep connection. Experts claim that Matisse saw his daughter as an extension of himself. He, too, had been hospitalized as a child, and it was his mother’s gift of colored pencils, as he convalesced, that set him on the path of becoming an artist.

After her operation in 1920, Marguerite spent weeks recovering in Normandy. Now liberated from wearing her iconic black choker, she appeared in a final series of portraits painted near the coastal town of Étretat. These are the last individual paintings that Matisse made of Marguerite for the next 25 years, although he occasionally included his daughter as a secondary character in certain tableaux.

In 1918, Matisse relocated to Nice, while Marguerite remained in Paris, where she eventually married. Although father and daughter no longer saw each other daily, Marguerite became what today we’d call a publicist. Circulating amongst art merchants and collectors, she kept her father’s name in their ears and his work before their eyes. Her passion for organizing exhibitions and extending her father’s reputation internationally continued until the end of her life.

Marguerite’s most laudable undertaking came in 1944 when she became an agent for the French Resistance.

Risking her life, Marguerite couriered secret documents between Paris and several provincial towns. When an informer revealed her activities to the Nazis, she was picked up and arrested in Rennes. Tortured by the Gestapo for 8 hours, she remained true to her comrades, giving up no names. Convinced of her guilt, however, the Nazis threw her in prison and scheduled her deportation to Germany.

In an incredible stroke of luck, an Allied air raid halted the train she was riding en route to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. She managed to escape and hide in a nearby woods until members of the French Resistance picked her up and provided her with aid and safekeeping until the war ended.

Reunited with his daughter in 1945, Matisse was shocked to learn of Marguerite’s clandestine activities and brush with disaster. He created two final charcoal sketches of his beloved belle fille

I won’t be traveling to France this summer, so this post will have to stand in for an actual visit to what appears to be a promising exposition. How about you? Are you a Matisse fan? If you’ve visited Le musée d’art moderne de Paris, or attended Matisse et Marguerite, le regard d’un père, or plan to go in the coming months, let me know your thoughts.