April 12 – August 9, 2026

This exhibition features an important cache of drawings made by Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954) generously on loan from the Mourlot Archive. On view will be works Matisse produced together with master lithographer Fernand Mourlot (French, 1895-1988) in creating 13 of the artist books of poetry that defined the final two decades of his career. Key to the project is its consideration of the relationships between the artist and Mourlot, Matisse’s conception of a seamless link that conjoined verse and line drawing, and the intense contexts of Matisse’s own struggles through multiple cataclysms of the 1930s to the time of his death in 1954.

This exhibition aims to immerse the visitor in a selection of 71 drawings from the 200+ surviving sheets in the Mourlot archive, among them several never-before-exhibited pieces. Beyond Color considers how literary themes — love, beauty, mortality, sensuality — resonate across time and delves into the particularity of Matisse’s perilous situation at the outbreak of World War II: the separation of his wife, the confiscation of his property, his health crisis and subsequent convalescence. Revealed are both a profound dialogue between word and image and one of the most spectacular “second act” career accomplishments by a towering figure of European Modernism.

Henri Matisse: Beyond Color is organized by the Morris Museum with the close collaboration of the Mourlot Archive and Argonaut Fine Art Ltd. and in acknowledgment of the help of Les Héritiers Matisse. Generous support for the exhibition has come from the Museum’s President’s Circle, with in-kind gifts from Novartis and Braun & Chamberlain Inc.

Image Captions: Henri Matisse, Head of a girl, 1946. Drawing on lithographic transfer paper. 12 x 9 in. (30 1/2 x 22.9 cm.); Henri Matisse at work, 1947, Photo by Ina Bandy; Henri Matisse, Sleeping woman, 1948. Drawing on lithographic transfer paper. 7 1/4 x 10 1/2 in. (18.4 x 26.7 cm.); Henri Matisse, Head of a nun in profile, 1946. Proof lithograph. 13 x 10 in. (33 x 25.4 cm.); Henri Matisse, Head of a girl in profile, 1948. Drawing on lithographic transfer paper. 14 1/2 x 10 1/2 in. (36.8 x 26.7 cm.); Henri Matisse, Page proof for André Rouveyre, Apollinaire (1952), 13 x 19 1/2 in. (33 x 49.5 cm.). All photos courtesy of the Mourlot Archive, and all Matisse works © Les Héritiers Matisse. Installation shots by Dawn Joseph Photography.