the matisse costumes

In conjunction with the exhibition dedicated to « Azzedine Alaïa, couturier collectionneur » at the Palais Galliera, the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris displays 3 stage costumes designed by Henri Matisse for the Ballets Russes in 1919, from the collections of the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation.These rare pieces are presented in an emblematic room of the museum, at the heart of the museum’s permanent collections: The Henri Matisse room.

Among all the costumes designed by Matisse for this orientalizing ballet, Azzedine Alaïa acquired the most audacious and the most abstract of them. Sketched freely by hand, the flowers painted on the costume of the Chamberlain form a decorative motif extremely synthetic and modern. More austere and geometric, the triangles and oblique bands applied on the costume of the Mourners create an intense contrasting and rhythmic effect.

Once again, the association between the Palais Galliera and the Museum of Modern Art finds herein its greatest manifestation. By creating a dialogue between the plastic arts and the applied arts, it demonstrates the exigency of avant-garde creators and the practices beyond the artistic fields.