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Which sculptors influenced Henri Matisse’s early three-dimensional work?
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Henri Matisse
French artist Henri Matisse, photograph by Alvin Langdon Coburn, 1913.
Henri Matisse’s early three-dimensional work was primarily influenced by two prominent sculptors: Auguste Rodin and Antoine-Louis Barye.1
Matisse began attending evening sculpture classes in 1899, the same year he purchased a plaster model of a bust of Henri Rochefort by Rodin. His early development in the medium was shaped by Rodin’s approach, as well as the work of Barye, who is widely regarded as the greatest French sculptor of animals.1