© 2005 Sophie Matisse/Artist’s Rights Society (ARS), New York
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SOPHIE MATISSE’S FIRST SOLO SHOW IN NEW YORK

TO OPEN AT FRANCIS M. NAUMANN FINE ART

(January 22, 2002 – March 2, 2002)

“Sophie Matisse,” the artist’s first solo show in a New York gallery, will open at Francis M. Naumann Fine Art on January 22, 2002.  A simplistic description of her work would be to say that she makes impressively accurate replicas of famous paintings, but with one noteworthy alteration: she removes all living figures – people and animals – leaving the viewer to ponder the resultant affect.  In some cases, the psychological (and, indeed, physiological) impact of these removals is quite profound, and differs, in variant degrees, from painting to painting.  In almost all cases, she selects images that are already familiar to the viewer.  As she explained in a recent interview: “I deal with images – as a more famous artist once put it – ‘that the mind already knows’.”  Thus, her subjects range from paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Jan Vermeer, to Edgar Degas, Jean-August-Dominique Ingres, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Charles Willson Peale, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, and -- most notably -- her great grandfather, Henri Matisse.