Morrice and Lyman in the Company of Matisse Essays by Lucie Dorais, Richard Foisy, Francois-Marc Gagnon, Marc Gauthier, Michele Grandbois & John O'Brian

4to. pp. 254. profusely illustrated. bibliography. index. bds. dw. Buffalo & Richmond Hill: Firefly Books, [2014].

New.

ISBN-10: 1770854932 / ISBN-13: 9781770854932

Published in conjunction with an exhibition held at the Musee National des Beaux-arts du Quebec, and at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

The artists James Wilson Morrice and John Lyman, both from Montreal, were pioneers of modern art in Canada. Their quest for free and authentic expression led them to Paris, the heart of the bubbling avant-garde that would so influence twentieth-century art. There they rubbed shoulder with the famous painter Henri Matisse and in 1910 Lyman became a pupil of the master at the Matisse Academy. Some years later, in Tangier, Morocco, Morrice and Matisse would become firm friends and colleagues in art.

This book juxtaposes works by these three highly individual artists, revealing their affinities and similarities. Inveterate travellers, entrance by the exquisite colours of North Africa and the endless summer of the Caribbean, Morrice and Lyman succeeded in capturing the same warmth and texture of light that so fascinated Matisse.

This book marks the exhibit "Morrice and Lyman in the Company of Matisse" mounted at the Musee national des beaux-arts du Quebec, which examined the seminal dialogue between James Wilson Morrice (1865-1924) and John Lyman (1886-1967) with Henri Matisse (1869-1954). Dr. Michele Grandbois, Curator of Modern Art at the Musee national des beaux-arts du Quebec. has brought together the intersecting research of six specialists. Their essays are complemented by a chronology tracing the movements of the three artists and by four richly illustrated portfolios that take us from Europe to North Africa and from Quebec to the West Indies