Books by Dita Amory

Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism

by Ann Dumas, Dita Amory

In the summer of 1905, the French painters Henri Matisse and André Derain changed the course of art history with their radical color experiments

During the summer of 1905, Henri Matisse and André Derain went on holiday in Collioure, a modest French fishing village fifteen miles from the Spanish border. This groundbreaking book examines how two artists, entranced by the shifting light and stunning imagery of the eastern Mediterranean, laid the groundwork for the movement known as Fauvism (from the French fauve, or “wild beast”). Featuring more than 70 paintings, watercolors, and drawings produced by Matisse and Derain during their stay, the book also brings to life their personal and artistic revelations with 21 of their letters, published here for the first time in English. Vivid and engaging texts detail their daring experiments with color, form, structure, and perspective; the scandal their paintings caused when they were exhibited several months later; and how, despite the jeering remarks from critics, these works changed the course of French painting. Emphasizing as never before the legacy of that summer, this publication shows how the two artists’ radical investigations galvanized their contemporaries, and how this strain of modernism, created almost by accident, resonates even into the present day.

Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press

Exhibition Schedule

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(October 13, 2023–January 21, 2024)

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
(February 25–May 27, 2024)

Félix Vallotton

by Belinda Thomson, Ann Dumas, Dita Amory, Patrick McGuinness, Philippe Büttner, Katia Poletti, Christian Rümelin

Vallotton’s vivid, enigmatic and sometimes unsettling paintings and woodcuts made him a key commentator on the social mores of fin-de-siècle Paris
By the end of the 19th century, Paris was the unrivaled capital of the Western art world. Impressionism had transformed the visual arts and post-impressionism was flourishing in its wake; new boulevards and parks had modernized the city; theaters and department stores provided endless opportunities for entertainment and consumption. Artists were seen by many as the avant-garde of a new society.

Into this dynamic world arrived the 16-year-old Félix Vallotton, who became closely involved with a group of artists known as the Nabis, which included Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. Vallotton adopted their decorative painterly language, also sharing their interest in journalistic illustration and Japanese ukiyo-e prints. His paintings and woodcuts offered witty and often unsettling observations of domestic and political life, and he is now considered one of the greatest printmakers of his age. As his work evolved, the sharp realism and cool linearity of his later style made him one of the most distinctive artists of the early 20th century.

Generously illustrated throughout with the finest of his paintings and prints, this book accompanies a new presentation of Vallotton’s oeuvre in New York and London that includes works never before seen in public and aims to reevaluate his output and legacy. Texts by leading authorities on the artist look at his life, work and reception.

Swiss artist Félix Vallotton (1865–1925) was born in Lausanne, but spent much of his working life in France. Although he produced some of his most important work in Paris in the 1890s in painting and print, his original and innovative approach persisted throughout his career.

Madame Cézanne

by Dita Amory

A new account of Cézanne's complex relationship with his wife, who served as the subject of some of his most iconic portraits

Paul Cézanne's (1839-1906) portraits of Hortense Fiquet (1850-1922), his wife and the subject of some of his iconic portraits, rank among the most powerful of their kind in French modernism. Yet, posterity has not been kind to Madame Cézanne. She was called a distraction, blamed for her husband's "lackluster" landscapes, and disdained for her impenetrable expression in the paintings. The reality is more complex, for while Fiquet may not have been the passion of Cézanne's lifetime, she was a willing accomplice, as model, mother of his only son, and unwavering partner against all odds.

Madame Cézanne examines this unique relationship as it looks at Cézanne the painter, draftsman, and portraitist. Featuring 24 of Cézanne's oil portraits of Fiquet and most of the known drawings, Madame Cézanne both reevaluates, with insight and compassion, the long-held misconceptions about the Cézannes' unconventional marriage, and shows how Cézanne's portraits of his wife provide a lens through which to better understand his overall technique.

Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press

Exhibition Schedule:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
(11/18/14-03/15/15)