Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
In the second of a four-part lecture series, art historian John Walsh shows how in mid-career Henri Matisse was encouraged by foreign patrons to explore primal scenes in figure paintings, and domestic interiors with arbitrary space and exuberant decoration. Sculpture became a way to explore figural expression on a large scale.
John Walsh, an independent art historian, was director of the J. Paul Getty Museum from 1983 until 2000. After graduating from Yale and getting his PhD from Columbia, he worked as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and taught art history at Columbia and Harvard. Since he left the Getty he has been teaching part-time at Yale and giving public lectures there. He has previously given lecture series at the Hammer on Vincent Van Gogh and Rembrandt van Rijn.
Subscribe to the Hammer Museum's channel:
youtube.com/channel/UCjcgouIXgFyxJgAPbVE6dlg?sub_confirmation=1
In the second of a four-part lecture series, art historian John Walsh shows how in mid-career Henri Matisse was encouraged by foreign patrons to explore primal scenes in figure paintings, and domestic interiors with arbitrary space and exuberant decoration. Sculpture became a way to explore figural expression on a large scale.
John Walsh, an independent art historian, was director of the J. Paul Getty Museum from 1983 until 2000. After graduating from Yale and getting his PhD from Columbia, he worked as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and taught art history at Columbia and Harvard. Since he left the Getty he has been teaching part-time at Yale and giving public lectures there. He has previously given lecture series at the Hammer on Vincent Van Gogh and Rembrandt van Rijn.
Subscribe to the Hammer Museum's channel:
youtube.com/channel/UCjcgouIXgFyxJgAPbVE6dlg?sub_confirmation=1
