Matisse in Moscow, icons and the avant-garde

In October 1911, Henri Matisse travelled to Russia to stay with his most important patron, Sergei Shchukin. The wealthy Moscow businessman had commissioned two enormous canvases, which now rank amongst the artist’s greatest works. This lecture relates what happened in Moscow and how Matisse fell in love with Russian icons, and how his riotous paintings revolutionised the young Moscow avant-garde.

Lecturer: Rosamund Bartlett

Rosamund Bartlett is a writer, lecturer and translator whose work ranges across the arts, and across the cultures of Europe, from Italy to Norway. She began her career as an academic in Slavic studies after completing her doctorate at Oxford. In 2024, she became a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Brasenose College, Oxford.