Matisse’s La Blouse Roumaine to be shown in Amsterdam; Only 2nd time loaned by Pompidou

The H’ART Museum in Amsterdam will host a rare loan later this year: Henri Matisse’s La Blouse Roumaine (1940). The work is usually part of the Centre Pompidou collection in Paris and is very rarely exhibited elsewhere; this will be only the second time it has been loaned out.

The work shows a woman wearing traditional Romanian dress and has long been admired in the fashion world. Designers such as Yves Saint Laurent, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Tom Ford have previously based collections on its imagery.

The large-scale exhibition Chez Matisse marks only the third time a major presentation of his work has been shown in the Netherlands. The last major Matisse exhibition, The Oasis of Matisse, took place in 2015 at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and drew around 360,000 visitors. Around 30 of Matisse’s works will be featured, alongside pieces by contemporaries including Picasso and Le Corbusier, as well as later artists such as Mark Rothko.

Matisse is widely regarded as one of the most groundbreaking artists of the 20th century. The H’ART Museum is staging the exhibition in cooperation with the Centre Pompidou, which is currently closed for renovations.

In total, the exhibition brings together over 80 works. Alongside 30 pieces by Matisse, it includes works by Georges Braque and Sonia Delaunay, as well as key American artists such as Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Ellsworth Kelly. The show is designed to emphasize the artistic conversation between Matisse and later generations who were inspired by his approach to color.

The Chez Matisse exhibition will be on display from October 3 until February 14, 2027.