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John Klein

person's name

Associate Professor
Modern and Contemporary Art
Ph.D. Columbia University

mailing address:
Department of Art History and Archaeology
109 Pickard Hall
Columbia, MO 65211-1420

phone: 573-882-6711
fax: 573-884-5269
email: KleinJ at missouri dot edu

Teaching

  • AHA 1120: Introduction to Western Art, II
  • AHA 3750: Modern Art in Europe and America, 1880-1940
  • AHA 3760: Contemporary Art
  • AHA 4005/7005: Topics in Art History and Archaeology:
    The History of the Art Museum
  • AHA 4730/7730: Realism through Post-Impressionism
  • AHA 4760/7760: Modern Sculpture, Canova to Koons
  • AHA 4780/7780: Advanced Course in Contemporary Art: Public Art

Graduate Seminars

  • Introduction to Graduate Study in Art History
  • Critical Studies in Portraiture, Ancient to Contemporary
  • Modern Portraiture
  • The Decorative Aesthetic in Modernism, 1850-1950
  • Matisse
  • Matisse and Picasso
  • Cubism
  • Dada and Surrealism
  • Formalism and its Discontents

Research

My research concentrates on European painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and art theory of the first half of the 20th century, with a particular focus on the art of Henri Matisse. Currently I am writing a book called Matisse’s Late Decorations and the Essential Quality of Art for Yale University Press. This will be an extended consideration of the concept of the decorative in Matisse’s art, with special attention given to his commissioned work in such architectural media as stained glass and ceramic tile, as well as tapestry, carpets, fabric wall hangings, fashion fabrics, and a variety of decorative objects in ceramic and glass. I am also preparing an edition of essays on Matisse’s painting Le Bonheur de vivre, as well as articles on Kees Van Dongen’s Fauve portraits and the conflicting goals of portraiture and decoration in Matisse’s art.

Publications

Matisse Portraits, Yale University Press, 2001. Finalist for Charles Rufus Morey Award, College Art Association.

other recent publications

“Inventing Mediterranean Harmony in Matisse’s Paper Cut-Outs,” in Modern Art and the Idea of the Mediterranean, ed. Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutynski (University of Toronto Press, 2007), 146-60.

“The Mask as Image and Strategy,” in The Mirror and the Mask: Portraiture in the Age of Picasso, ed. Paloma Alarcó and Malcolm Warner, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid and Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 25-35. Also published in Spanish as "Las máscaras como imagen y estrategia."

Interview with Dutch artist Michael Berkhemer for “I am not a printmaker, I am a painter who makes prints.” Michael Berkhemer (St. Louis: Wildwood Press, 2007), 6-7.

“Degree Zero of Self-Portraiture: Matisse’s Self-Portrait in a Striped Jersey, 1906,” in Matisse Masterpieces at Statens Museum for Kunst, ed. Dorthe Aagesen, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2005, 67-86. Also published in Danish as "Selvportrætteringens nulpunkt: Selvportræt med stribet bluse.”

“Paradoxe du portrait fauve,” in Matisse-Derain: Collioure 1905, un été fauve, ed. Joséphine Matamoros and Dominique Szymusiak, Musée d’Art Moderne, Céret, and Musée Matisse, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France (Paris: Gallimard, 2005), 48-53, 291.

Seven essays on paintings and sculptures by Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, and Piet Mondrian for Handbook of the St. Louis Art Museum, 2004, 250-51, 265-66, 269, 277, 282.

Four essays on individual portraits by Matisse and Picasso for The Hundred Greatest Portraits: Portraiture in the Western Tradition, 1300-1939 (London: Folio Society, 2004), 186-89, 194-95, 208-9.

“L’Héritage de Gauguin, ou l’art de relativiser l’idéal primitiviste,” in Actes du Colloque: Paul Gauguin, héritage et confrontations,” ed. Riccardo Pineri (Papeete, Tahiti: L’Université de la Polynésie Française and Editions le Motu, 2003), 112-22.

“Objects of Desire and Irresistible Forces: Matisse Between Patrons, Collectors and War,” introduction to Henri Matisse: Four Great Collectors, ed. Kasper Monrad, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1999, 11-23. Also published in Danish as "Attråede genstande og uimodståelige kræfter: Matisse mellem mæcenerne, samlerne og krigen.”

“Matisse après Tahiti, la maturation d’une expérience exotique” (revision of “Matisse After Tahiti,” below) in Matisse et l’Océanie: le voyage à Tahiti, ed. Dominique Szymusiak, Musée Matisse, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France, 1998, 179-220.

“The Dispersal of the Modernist Series,” Oxford Art Journal 21, no. 1 (1998), 121-35.

“Un Artiste français en Océanie: Henri Matisse et Tahiti,” in Océanie, la découverte du paradis: curieux, navigateurs et savants. Les collections océaniennes des musées du Nord-Pas de Calais, ed. Annick Nottier, Château-Musée, Boulogne-sur-Mer; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dunkerque; Musée d’Histoire Naturelle, Lille; Musée de l’Hôtel Sandelin, Saint-Omer; Musée Samuel Henry Berthoud, Douai (France); Centre Culturel, Nouméa (New Caledonia) (Lille: Association des Conservateurs des Musées du Nord-Pas de Calais and Paris: Somogy, 1997), 132-36.

“Matisse After Tahiti: The Domestication of Exotic Memory,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 60, no. 1 (1997), 44-89.

brief name of work

Matisse Portraits
Yale University Press
2001

 

 


 
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