Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism

In the summer of 1905, the French painters Henri Matisse and Andre Derain changed the course of art history with their radical color experiments

During the summer of 1905, Henri Matisse and Andre Derain went on holiday in Collioure, a modest French fishing village fifteen miles from the Spanish border. This groundbreaking book examines how two artists, entranced by the shifting light and stunning imagery of the eastern Mediterranean, laid the groundwork for the movement known as Fauvism (from the French fauve, or \”wild beast\”). Featuring more than 70 paintings, watercolors, and drawings produced by Matisse and Derain during their stay, the book also brings to life their personal and artistic revelations with 21 of their letters, published here for the first time in English. Vivid and engaging texts detail their daring experiments with color, form, structure, and perspective; the scandal their paintings caused when they were exhibited several months later; and how, despite the jeering remarks from critics, these works changed the course of French painting. Emphasizing as never before the legacy of that summer, this publication shows how the two artists’ radical investigations galvanized their contemporaries, and how this strain of modernism, created almost by accident, resonates even into the present day.

Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press

Exhibition Schedule

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(October 13, 2023-January 21, 2024)

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
(February 25-May 27, 2024)

Format: Hardback
Pages: 192
Imprint: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Publication date: 08/12/2023