Exhibitions
"Chez Matisse" at H'ART Museum: only the third major Matisse survey in the Netherlands
Since Saturday, H'ART Museum in Amsterdam has been showing more than eighty works from the Matisse collection of the Centre Pompidou, with "La Blouse roumaine" as a rare guest.
Since Saturday 3 October, "Chez Matisse – Masterpieces from Centre Pompidou" has been on view at H'ART Museum in Amsterdam. With more than eighty works, the exhibition offers an overview of the work of the French artist Henri Matisse (1869–1954). It has been drawn from the Matisse collection of the Centre Pompidou, according to the museum one of the most complete collections of his work in the world. The exhibition runs until Sunday 14 February 2027.
Rarely on this scale
Matisse is known worldwide, but according to H'ART Museum his work has rarely been seen on this scale in the Netherlands. "Chez Matisse" is only the third major survey of his work ever held in the Netherlands, writes the museum.
His teacher Gustave Moreau told him early on: "You were born to simplify painting." In the years that followed, Matisse reinvented painting with his free use of colour. The exhibition follows his development, from an early self-portrait from 1900 to the later paintings and the iconic cut-outs from the last years of his life, which are shown in print. Matisse was not only a painter, but also a sculptor, draughtsman, printmaker and book illustrator.
In conversation with others
Matisse's work hangs in dialogue with that of contemporaries and later artists, including Pierre Bonnard, Kees van Dongen, Sonia Delaunay, Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Ellsworth Kelly. Unlike his friend and rival Picasso, Matisse developed his style step by step, according to the museum, in the conviction that true simplicity only arises from years of experimenting and refining.
A rare loan
An exceptional loan is "La Blouse roumaine" (The Romanian Blouse), a key work that rarely leaves the Paris museum. Matisse made the painting in April 1940.
The exhibition stems from the ongoing collaboration between H'ART Museum and the Centre Pompidou, following earlier exhibitions on Wassily Kandinsky (2024) and Constantin Brancusi (2025-2026). It is part of the "Constellation" programme, through which the Centre Pompidou remains active during the renovation of its building in Paris.
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