In 1909, Henri Matisse and his family moved to the outskirts of Paris to escape the hustle and bustle of the capital.

A Wilhelminian villa in Issy-les-Moulineaux, which was surrounded by a park, became the center of his life.

Here his wife Amélie could grow flowers to her heart's content and the children Marguerite, Jean and Pierre were allowed to frolic.

On the adjacent meadow orchard, the artist was able to fulfill his own dream - a studio in the countryside.

A path lined with borders and cypresses soon led to the prefabricated building, which was constructed with a lot of wood but adapted to his own wishes, in which Matisse was able to work undisturbed from then on, especially on paintings and sculptures.

This included things he had started, which he had brought with him from Paris, and orders, for example from Hugo von Tschudi, director of the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, and Sergei Shchukin, a collector in Moscow.

What these clients did not suspect: the pictures intended for them will not only breathe the fresh vigor of new working conditions, but also explicitly depict the new studio.

Tightrope walk in Venetian red

This includes a picture measuring 180 by 220 centimetres, which Matisse practically covered in Venetian red in 1911: “L'Atelier rouge”.

As a tightrope walk between perspective perception of space and illusionism, figuration and abstraction as well as richness of palette and monochrome, it was probably far ahead of its time.

Because, contrary to expectations, Shchukin was not able to warm to the picture intended for him and no other interested parties were found for a long time, it only made it to London in 1927.

Here it served as a decoration in the mirrored dining and ballroom of the Gargoyle Club, a chic meeting place during the day and a sophisticated nightclub at late hours.

Eventually, with some hesitation, the picture was acquired by the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1949, where it quickly became popular with the public and artists,

Since then, MoMA has long since given the picture the status of a major work of the twentieth century and recently dedicated the exhibition “Matisse: The Red Studio” to it.

Now this show has arrived as Matisse: Det røde atelier in Copenhagen's Statens Museum - the Danish national gallery - which she co-produced.

This second stop is no coincidence: On the one hand, one of the world's largest Matisse collections is at home here, as evidenced by the house's permanent collection, and on the other hand, there are some works associated with the "Red Studio", those "Pictures in the Picture". , which can be seen on the large-format canvas.

Matisse illustrated facets of his work and development with the reproductions of older and more recent works of his own on “L'Atelier rouge”.