Materials Lab Workshop: “Drawing with Scissors”—Matisse’s Painted Paper Technology

French artist Henri Matisse’s paper cutouts relay dazzling visions of the worlds inside his “memory bank,” from Parisian circuses to Tahitian lagoons. This workshop explores the history and materiality of the painted paper technology that enabled Matisse to give these visions form.

Camran Mani, a Ph.D. candidate in the history of art and architecture at Harvard University, will lead the workshop. Participants will closely examine the artist’s book Jazz — the earliest major presentation of Matisse’s cutout work—in the Art Study Center before moving on to the Materials Lab to experiment with materials and the process of making cutouts—what Matisse, writing in Jazz, imagined as a matter of “drawing with scissors.”

The workshop coincides with the exhibition Matisse in the Studio at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (April 9–July 9, 2017), which includes a selection of the artist’s cutout works.

The event will be held in the Materials Lab, Lower Level.
 
$15 materials fee. Registration is required and payment must be made in advance. Please email am_visitorservices@harvard.edu or stop by the museums’ admissions desk to register. Space is limited to 15 participants. Minimum age of 14.