Putting colors together*

Magnet#512 - Matisse's Nuit de Noël, 1952

I bought this magnet from my second favorite magnet vendor here in town. She has a great little stand just down the block from the Met, and I can never resist buying a magnet or two (or three) from here.

When I started writing this post, I couldn't remember who she said painted it, so I started searching the interwebs.

...almost two hours later...

At first, I thought it was Chagall. But, I got distracted by the awesome body of Chagall's work. I honestly couldn't tell you if I've ever seen a Chagall window. Now, I totally want to go see Chagall's 12 Tribes of Israel windows in Jerusalem.

They're absolutely beautiful. And, after this post, I'm totally gonna go look up where his closest windows are here in town.

My next thought was Picasso, but, it really didn't look a thing like his work.

But, as you look at it, you slowly realize whose work it is. Matisse, because the stars and the squiggles do kinda look Matisse-y. In the end, I was right, thanks to this person's Reverse Engineering Matisse blogpost.

And here's where burned most of the last hour...I started to hunt the painting down, to see whose wall it's hanging on and in what country. From what I've pieced together, Nuit de Noël is apparently a design that he did, supposedly a study for a stained-glass window that he designed in the Hotel Regina in Nice-Cimiez, in France, where Matisse lived/worked for a while.

Nice-Cimiez is also home to the Matisse Museum. But, a quick spin through its collection didn't yield this piece. Sigh. And, looks like Hotel Regina is now a residential building, so who knows where this piece (or the window) is now.

No, seriously.

Who knows?

I would love to hear from anyone about this Matisse piece....

*“When I put colors together, they have to join a living chord, like a musical chord or harmony.”

- Matisse

eta, a week later:
So I stumbled upon the nearest Chagall here in town! It's this window at the United Nations, dedicated to Dag Hammarskjold. Random. But, awesome.

Girl with yellow hair

Magnet #348 - Picasso's Woman with Yellow Hair

I can't figure out if I like Picasso's work or not.

Admittedly, it's because I've never seen a comprehensive collection of his work all in one place to make such a judgment. Usually, I see his famous works, or works from specific periods of his life, but not too many all at once.

Obvi, it's never hard to identify any of his paintings, but there is something neat about how they do tend to stop me in my tracks, forcing me to look twice.

This chick is Marie-Thérèse, one of his mistresses, and from what I gather, most of his paintings romanticize her, with sensual lines and a curviness about her. He painted her a lot, capturing her in many poses.

Though she's supposedly part of the Guggenheim collection, I haven't seen this piece. Not surprising, since I've only recently visited the Gug for the first time. In fact, I've had her sitting on the freezer door art gallery positioned horizontally, not vertically. Heh. Oops.

Anyway, the reason why I picked her today, is because I saw the most hysterical trailer (with Coop, Kevin Connolly and Justin Long) for He's Just Not That Into You with a cast that includes Drew Barrymore.

Which reminded me of Drew in Charlie's Angels.

Which reminded me of the original Charlie's Angels.

Which reminded me of Farrah Fawcett.

Which reminded me of the story my parents love reminding me of.

Apparently, when I was about four or five, I wished for blonde hair, and went around telling everyone to call me Jill Munroe.