Hall dedicated to works by Matisse to open at Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums announced the opening of a special hall dedicated exclusively to the display of religious works by the famous French artist Henri Matisse.

The works were donated in 1980 to the Holy See by Matisse’s son Pierre, and will be displayed in a room that will open later this year. The room will exhibit sketches of decorative elements of the Chapel of the Rosary of the Dominican nuns of Vence (France) which opened in 1951 with the works done by the artist at age 85, three years before his death. The Vatican Museums’ Matisse exhibit will include the centerpiece of that chapel, "The Stations of the Cross", with the 14 Stations painted in three rows on ceramic tile. Other art pieces in the display are a painted bronze cross, holy figures, some religious vestments, a stone altar, furniture, stained glass and various decorations for walls. The hall will be completed, among other works, with three large-scale, five-meter tall drawings that are the basis of the stained glass work known as "The Tree of Life", and with several of the letters donated by Sister Jacques-Marie with whom the painter corresponded. Henri Matisse’s work at the Chapel of the Rosary was the result of the close friendship between Matisse and Monique Bourgeois (who later took the name of Sister Jacques-Marie when she became a Dominican Nun). Matisse had hired her in 1941 as a nurse when he was affected by cancer and underwent surgery. Monique also agreed to work as a model for some of his paintings. They met again in Vence where Matisse completed several pieces of art at the Chapel of The Rosary, many of which will be relocated to the new hall in the Vatican Museums. Matisse died of a heart attack in 1954 at the age of 84. He was buried in the cemetery of the Monastère Notre Dame de Cimiez, near Nice.

P.Semeria Nice (France)

Tombstone of Henri Matisse and his wife Noellie, at the cemetery of the Monastère Notre Dame de Cimiez, Cimiez, France.

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