Matisse in Morocco: A Journey of Light and Color

The remarkable and little-known story of Henri Matisse and his groundbreaking time in Morocco, a fertile period that transformed his art and cemented his legacy.

In winter of 1912, Henri Matisse--forty-two, nearing mid-career, and yet to find lasting critical acceptance, public admiration, or financial security since exploding to the forefront of the avant-garde in 1905 with his iconoclastic Fauve paintings--was struggling. Once the vanguard leader, the Parisian avant-garde now considered him passé. His important early collectors, including Gertrude and Leo Stein, had stopped buying his work and were fully championing Picasso, and he had exhibited little in the last few years. In the face of Cubism that was now dominating the art scene, Matisse needed to get away from Paris in order to advance his distinctive artistic vision.

Almost on a whim, he went to Tangier. Matisse had already been profoundly inspired by Islamic art, and was primed for his arrival in the Moroccan city where such art was integrated into everyday life. Despite the challenges of rain, insomnia, depression, and finding models, the sojourn was such a success he returned the following winter, which would lead to even greater artistic triumph.

Matisse in Morocco tells the story of the artist’s groundbreaking time in Tangier and how it altered Matisse’s development as a painter and indelibly marked his work for the next four decades. Through Koehler’s research and travel, we experience Matisse’s time in Tangier, the paintings and their subjects, his relationships with his wife Amélie and his two important collectiors, and then come to understand the impact Morocco--its light, colors, culture, and artistic traditions--had on his art. From Landscape Viewed From a Window, to Zorah on the Terrace, from Kasbah Gate to the dream-like tableau Moroccan Café, these works from Morocco are now recognized as some of the most significant and dazzling of Matisse’s illustrious career.

Jeff Koehler is an American writer, photographer, traveller and cook, and author of books and articles on food and culture including Spain: Recipes and Traditions, named one of year’s top cookbooks by the New York Times; Morocco: A Culinary Journey with Recipes; and La Paella: Deliciously Authentic Rice Dishes from Spain’s Mediterranean Coast. His work has appeared in Saveur, Food & Wine, NPR.org, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Afar, Tin House and Best Food Writing 2010. After doing post-graduate work at King’s College London, he moved to Barcelona, where he has lived since 1996. jeff-koehler.com @koehlercooks