Alex Katz, 99, Faces Matisse in Rare Double Show in Nice

By Elena Vasquez

Alex Katz, 99, is exhibiting alongside Henri Matisse at the Matisse Museum in Nice, France — a pairing the American painter says "gave me a lot of anxiety." The exhibition, "Henri Matisse — Alex Katz: The Silence of Painting," opened last week and runs through Jan. 18.

The show places Katz's 2025 painting "Hanging Leaves 2" directly beneath Matisse's bronze reliefs at the museum entrance. Across an entire wall to the right hangs Matisse's monumental 1950s cutout "Flowers and Fruits," its vivid colors and shapes appearing to converse with Katz's bright orange pattern of leaves and stems across the decades.

Why pair Katz with Matisse?

Aymeric Jeudy, the museum's director and the show's curator, conceived the double billing. "They are two artists who followed similar paths, remaining figurative painters all their lives even when they were at odds with their counterparts," Jeudy said.

The two painters also shared approaches "to color, to an architectural vision of landscape," Jeudy added, and "to the integration of people, patterns and objects through the use of light."

Katz's relationship with Matisse spans more than seven decades. In 1949, as a young man, he attended an exhibition at Matisse's son's gallery in New York. His admiration has endured.

"Matisse is simply the best technician in 400 years," Katz said recently by phone from the SoHo apartment and studio in Manhattan where he and his wife, Ada, have lived since 1968.

How did the anxiety play out?

Katz welcomed the pairing and feared it in equal measure. "I wondered whether I would hold up," he said of hanging his work beside the French master's.

The comparison is direct. Visitors encounter Katz's contemporary paintings next to Matisse's cutouts, bronzes and experimental pieces, with resonances of form, color and light emerging across the galleries.

How was the show built?

Jeudy traveled to Katz's studio with the proposition. The museum's holdings gave the project its raw material: "We have about 800 pieces at the museum," Jeudy said, including "many works that Matisse wanted to keep in his studio because they were quite experimental."

The selection process ran in both directions:

• Jeudy suggested Katz choose works he liked from the museum's collection.
• In return, Katz let Jeudy choose from the painter's own archive.

That exchange produced a dialogue rather than a retrospective: one figurative painter measuring himself against another, seven decades apart in age and practice.

What does the show mean for Katz's legacy?

At 99, Katz is still painting — "Hanging Leaves 2" dates from 2025, made in the same SoHo studio he has occupied since 1968. The Nice exhibition tests his lifelong claim about Matisse's technique against the evidence of shared walls, and its run through Jan. 18 gives visitors a rare chance to judge whether Katz, as he wondered, does hold up.