Matisse Inventing and Adapting

Sunday, February 22, 2026 at 3:00 PM

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

In old age Matisse devised flat, spaceless designs of boldly colored and nearly abstract forms that he often cut from colored paper. Weakened by chronic illness, he adapted his techniques and managed a heroic output, including the entire interior decoration of a light-filled chapel. **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](https://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2019/10/van-gogh-in-la) and [Rembrandt van Rijn](https://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2020/rembrandt-here-and-now).