World Paintings

Henri Matisse

Lorette with Turban and Yellow Jacket, 1917, oil on wood, National Gallery, Washington D.C.

Henri Matisse’s interaction with a model known simply as Lorette brought about a vivid breakthrough in the artist’s approach and style. She was born in Italy and made her living posing for artists such as Matisse. Lorette was then most likely in her late twenties to early thirties, while Matisse was approaching his forty-seventh birthday.

Matisse had not approached painting in this manner before and soon found it to be excitingly obsessive. He produced many Lorette-centered works during late 1916 through 1917, showing a significant shift from his prior style’s more jarring colors and shapes. Through Lorette, Matisse developed a richer, flowing sense of color and line, as well as an increased intimacy toward his subject.

The fate and later life of Lorette is a yet unsolved mystery, with speculation that she perhaps succumbed to the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic. Whether she lived long enough to witness Matisse’s 1951 retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art is also unknown, but despite the ultimate disappearance of Lorette, without the provocative model from Italy, Matisse might not have evolved into the same famed artist that much of the world reveres today.