The project will begin in November 2002 and will take the author to the following places. For the sake of chronology, this list doubles back whenever Matisse did, though the actual travel may not duplicate this.

1. Le Cateau-Cambrésis (birthplace, 1869, in Picardy; the house in which Matisse was born no longer exists, but was probably on the site of No. 5 rue de la Republique, then known as rue du Chene Arnaud)
   
   
2. Bohain-en-Vermandois (nearby, where HM grew up; his father’s seed store is at 26 rue du Chateau; Matisse lived in the house at 24 rue Fagard; his parents retired to 27 rue du Chateau, and also later owned 25 rue du Chateau and 2 rue Peu d’Aise)
   
   
3. Saint-Quentin (where HM was a bored law clerk in 1887- 88)
   
   
4. Paris (fall 1891, studies at l’Académie Julian; spring 1892, takes fifth-floor apartment at 19 quai Saint-Michel, near Notre Dame—this is with Camille Joblaud; later, after his marriage to Amélie, he moved to a studio with two windows and three rooms attached, also on the ffth floor. One window looked out directly over Notre Dame, the other upstream to the Pont St- Michael)
   
   
5. Belle-Ile, Brittany (makes three summer trips—1895, ’96, ’97)
   
   
6. Various points in Brittany (Le Palai s, Belle Ile’s chief port, with dramatic cliffs, a lighthouse, and a 17th century fortification; the Matisses lodged at 13 place de l’Hotel de Ville, beside the old church and the new town hall, with a view from their attic window at the back of the house looking down onto the quay and across the back harbor to the fortress; too noisy, so they left there for Kervilahouen, where they stayed in the top floor of a three-storied pilots house beside the track leading to the lighthouse. This is where The Open Door, Brittany, was painted; John Peter Russell’s “Englishman’s castle” stood nearby, overlooking the sheltered inlet of Goulphar ; HM painted Breton Serving Girlin a café at Grotte de l’Apothicairerie; he went also to Pont-Croix in Finistère, where he took a room above a patisserie—now the Crédit Agricole—at the angle of rue Louis Pasteur and rue des Marronniers; in Pont- Croix, he painted dining room of the Hotel des Voyageurs (The Dinner Table?); also painted the nearby fishing port of Audierne; the Pointe du Raz, a rocky promontory overlooking Shipwreck Bay; painted too at Pont-Aven, whose scenery lots of Paris painters were drawn to)
   
   
7. Camille left HM in summer 1897; that fall Henri met Améllie at a friend’s wedding in Neuilly
   
   
8. London (1898, honeymoons here, studies John Russell)
   
   
9. Ajaccio, Corsica (February-August 1898, following honeymoon, where Matisse first discovered the light of the South)
   
   
10. Toulouse (and environs, where his wife’s family is from; son Jean Gerard born here in 1899)
    
    
11. Paris again (1899-1904, living in larger apartment on quai Saint-Michel)
    
    
12. Saint-Tropez (1904, summers here near Paul Signac, whose house, La Hune, had a commanding view of the town; the Matisses stayed at a place called La Ramade, two rooms up and two rooms down; Matisse painted views of harbor, the place des Lices and the 17th-century Chapel of St . Anne, and the rooftops of the town; see painting called The Gulf o f St. Tropez)
    
    
13. Collioure (1905, summers with André Derain)
    
    
14. Paris (1905, takes a studio in the Couvent des Oiseaux, 56 Sèvres)
    
    
15. Collioure (1906, spends summer there working in “more mellow color harmonies”)
    
    
16. Trip to Italy (1907; summer in Collioure)
    
    
17. Paris (spring 1908, moves home, studio, and school to Hotel Biron—the former Couvent des Oiseaux—at 33 Boulevard des Inval ides)
    
    
18. Cavaliere (1909, summers there)
    
    
19. Issy-les-Moulineaux, a suburb southwest of Paris (fall 1909, moves to leased house on the Route de Clamart)
    
    
20. Collioure (1911, summers here)
    
    
21. Morocco (January-April, 1912; mostly Tangier; then again in fall through winter 1912-1913)
    
    
22. Issy (summers there, 1913)
    
    
23. Paris (winter 1913, rents studio at 19 quai Saint-Michel, below his old studio)
    
    
24. Issy (summer 1914)
    
    
25. 1914, winters in Paris and Issy; makes trips to Arachon, near Bordeaux, and to Marseille
    
    
26. Nice (December 20, 1917, takes rooms at Hotel Beau-Rivage, 107 quai du Midi)
    
    
27. Nice (1918—paints at Hotel Beau-Rivage; moves to an apartment at 107 quai du Midi, next door; in May moves to the Villades Allies and paints landscapes in surrounding countryside; in fall, after summer at Issy and trip to Cherbourg to visit Pierre, Matisse takes room at the Hotel de la Méditerranée et de la Côte d’Azur, on the Promenade des Anglais)
    
    
28. Antibes (fall 1918, visits Bonnard)
    
    
29. 1919 (summers at Issy, works in London, returns to Hotel de la Méditerranée in Nice)
    
    
30. Nice (February-June 1920, Hotel de la Méditerranée)
    
    
31. Etretat , Normandy coast ( July 1920, paints motifs painted by Monet )
    
    
32. Nice (late September 1920-spring 1921, Hotel de la Méditerranée)
    
    
33. Nice (1921, paints figures in nearby landscapes; early September , rents an apartment on the third floor of 1 Place Charles-Felix, which he’ll keep until 1928)
    
    
34. Etretat (1922, summers there; in August returns to Nice)
    
    
35. Issy (1923, summers there; returns in fall to Nice)
    
    
36. Nice (1926, leases fourth floor of 1 Place Charles-Felix, which will be his residence until 1938; retains third- floor apartment as studio until 1928; Mme Matisse remains in Paris, in an apartment at 132 boulevard du Montparnasse)
    
    
37. Tahiti (spring 1930; also vis its New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Merion, PA, and Baltimore)
    
    
38. Nice (1931-33, working on Dance mural for Barnes Foundation)
    
    
39. Nice (1935, Lydia Delectorskaya begins posing for him)
    
    
40. Paris (1938, summers there; returns to Nice in fall)
    
    
41. Nice (fall 1938, moves to Hotel Regina in Cimiez, a suburb of Nice on a hill overlooking the city)
    
    
42. Paris (summer 1939, works in Hotel Lutetia ; returns to Hotel Regina in October, after war breaks out)
    
    
43. 1940: finalizes separation from Mme. Matisse in Paris; goes with Lydia to Bordeaux in May, then to Ciboure; returns to Nice via Carcasonne and Marseille)
    
    
44. Lyon (January 1941, undergoes surgery for duodenal cancer at Clinique du Parc, Lyon)
    
    
45. Nice (1943, following air raid at Cimiez, leaves Hotel Regina for villa “La Rêve” at Vence; this will be his principal residence until 1949)
    
    
46. Paris (July-November, 1945)
    
    
47. Vence (returns November 1945)
    
    
48. 1948 (summer in Paris, returns to Vence in October)
    
    
49. 1949 (returns to Hotel Regina in Nice, where he works on designs for Vence chapel)
    
    
50. 1951 (Chapel of the Rosary consecrated 25 June; Matisse cannot attend)
    
    
51. 1954 (Matisse dies 3 November in Nice; he is buried in the cemetery on the hilltop at Cimiez)

Copyright © 2005 James Morgan & Beth Arnold. All rights reserved