Image: Honolulu Museum of Art
A story titled ‘The eye has it: Curator Tyler Cann on HoMA’s Matisse painting’ reports that Tyler Cann included ‘Annelies, White Tulips and Anemones’ in the reinstallation of Gallery 7.
‘Annelies, White Tulips and Anemones’ is a 1944 oil painting by Henri Matisse, acquired by HoMA in 1946 as a gift from the Friends of the Academy. The work belongs to Matisse’s later years in southern France; he first went to Nice in 1917 and moved to nearby Vence a year before it was painted.
At the center is Annelies, framed by tulips and anemones, with heart-shaped forms on her blouse and an open book in front of her that looks like an art book. Cann says the diagonal lines of the tabletop and open book create a perception of depth and space, while the latticed background counters that effect and flattens the scene.
There is a smudge around one of Annelies’s eyes. The painting also has a more somber undertone.
