Nude Study in Blue circa 1899-1900
Académie bleue

Oil on canvas
support: 730 x 543 mm frame: 950 x 760 x 110 mm
painting

Bequeathed by C. Frank Stoop 1933

N04718

Matisse has not disguised the fact that this figure is a model posing in a teaching studio, probably the Académie Carri?re in Paris. His principal concern lay with the structure and proportion of the body, and the model's sinuous pose anticipates the more stylised arabesque figures of his later paintings. Her surroundings are sketched in with broad brushstrokes, becoming abstract planes of colour.
(From the display caption January 2009)