Henri Matisse, The Snail, 1953
Photo Credit: © 2017 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photograph: © Tate, London/Art Resource, NY
Photo Credit: Keith Major
WHEN THE TATE MODERN curators created the exhibition Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs in 2014, they asked me to do a video that would be part of the show. They wanted me to talk about the similarities between Matisse’s work and the way I dress. Honestly, I had never thought about that before—but I thought it would be fun, and when I started to choose clothing for the shoot, I realized that it was true. A number of my clothes look very . . . Matisse-y.
For the video, I was filmed paging through the show catalog and talking about the pieces from my closet that I thought complemented the cutouts. One cutout I chose, The Snail, appealed to me because of its subdued, yet brightly colored squares. Their tonality allows them to blend beautifully. If the work were a piece of clothing, it would be a great example of color blocking. So I put together a color-blocked outfit: I wore vivid multicolored bracelets and a colorful multi-tiered necklace along with a bright-orange vintage cape. That floor-length cape with a high, curving collar was also as heavy as a horse blanket, but as I said at the time, “We have to suffer for our art.”
The Horse, the Rider and the Clown, with its intense color, brought to mind a white Gianni Versace trouser-and-jacket combination. And as a self-professed jazz freak, I was delighted to discover that the work comes from his Jazz portfolio. I’m so happy to have a love of music and color in common with Monsieur Matisse.
When Matisse made this work, he was ill and could no longer sculpt, yet in the catalog he is described as carving through color. What a wonderful image. I like to imagine him thinking of his scissors as a sculpting tool, carving through color blocks or maybe, like a scythe, cutting through huge fields of magnificent color.
ON COLOR
A PERSONAL MANIFESTO
Personally, I can’t live without COLOR.
In the proper tonality, I’ve never met a COLOR I didn’t like.
I’ve always said that the world today is so gray that we need COLOR more than ever.
COLOR is a living, breathing thing.
And let’s face it, life can be dull; you might as well have a little fun with COLOR when you dress.
I wear red lipstick
because I like it and I think it’s becoming on me. Matisse once said, “A thimbleful of red is redder than a bucketful,” and Man Ray likened wearing red lipstick to the “dash and dignity of a courageous heart,” which sums it up perfectly. Red lipstick is minimal in its simplicity and elegance, but maximal in its impact, power, and glamour. If Minimal and Maximal had a baby, it would be the perfect red lipstick.
Photo Credit: Donald Robertson
Whatever happened
to mystery and glamour and all that good stuff?
Photo Credit: Norman Nelson