Midwest Museum Talk | Matisse and the Sea

Based on the current exhibition “Matisse and the Sea” at the Saint Louis Art Museum (on view until May 12, 2024), this second transatlantic conversation coordinated by Villa Albertine Chicago and  Saint Louis Art Museum will examine the theme of the sea in the French painter’s work.

From Matisse’s early marine landscapes captured in the South of France to his later intricate paper cutouts of the dreamlike underwater world, influenced by his journey to Tahiti in 1930 (where he even met Gauguin’s son), the sea reveals itself as an obsessive and fascinating theme throughout his artistic journey.

This discussion in French will be moderated by Professor Lionel Cuillé, founder and director of the French connexions Center of Excellence at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Speakers

Simon Kelly, Curator and Head of Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum

Simon Kelly is an English curator and art historian, and has been the Saint Louis Art Museum’s curator and head of department of modern and contemporary art since 2010.

He received an undergraduate degree from the University of Cambridge and a doctorate from Oxford University, where he also taught art history. He has published extensively on nineteenth and early twentieth-century French art, with a specialty in Barbizon and Impressionist painting, and recently published the book, Théodore Rousseau and the Rise of the Modern Art Market (Bloomsbury, 2021). Kelly has published on a range of other artists, such as Millet, Van Gogh, Degas, Monet, and Matisse, and has also written on American Abstract Expressionism.

Simon worked previously at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. Since joining the Saint Louis Art Museum, he has curated over 20 exhibitions, including the 2017 Degas, Impressionism, and the Paris Millinery Trade, the 2020 Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dali, the 2023 Monet/Mitchell: Painting the French Landscape, and the Museum’s current special exhibition, Matisse and the Sea.

Claudine Grammont, Scholar and Curator

Claudine Grammont is a French curator and art historian, specialist in modern and contemporary art. She is head of the department of drawing at the Musée national d’art modern, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. After a PhD in art history from University of Paris IV-Sorbonne), she has widely published on the fauve avant-garde and has curated or co-curated several important exhibitions on that topic such as Matisse and the Fauves (2013) and Matisse, Derain and their Friends, The Parisian Avant-Garde, 1904-1908 (2023).

She is recognized as an expert of Henri Matisse. Former director of the Musée Matisse in Nice from 1996 to 2023, she has curated a number of exhibitions such as Matisse années 1930 (2023); Tom Wesselmann, after Matisse (2023) ; Hockney-Matisse (2022), Pierre Matisse, un marchand d’art à New York (2020) ; Matisse Métamorphoses. La sculpture (2019). She directed the dictionary Tout Matisse (2018) and is the author with Yve-Alain Bois of Matisse in the Barnes Foundation (2015).

As the grand-daughter of the fauve artist Charles Camoin, she is head of the Archives Camoin and is currently preparing the catalogue raisonnée of the artist.

Dr. Lionel Cuillé, Teaching professor of French, Washington University in St Louis

Dr. Lionel Cuillé is the founder and director of the French connexions center of excellence at Washington University in St. Louis. His teaching and research focus on contemporary French poetry, the avant-gardes, and ecocriticism. He co-authored Francis Ponge, ateliers contemporains (Garnier, 2019).