Mrs Matisse by Sophie Haydock – blog tour

A novel about art, Paris and the South of France – and I’m sold! Mrs Matisse is Haydock’ second novel, after her first The Flames, (which I now have to read) took the lives of Austrian artist Egon Schiele’s women as its subject.

As you might guess, Mrs Matisse is a novel about the French painter Henri Matisse, told by three of the most important women in his life. They are Amélie, his wife; Marguerite, his daughter from his first marriage to an actress; and Lydia Delectorskaya, who fled Russia, and ended up working for the Matisse family. Each of the three women takes the chronological narrative in turn, Amélie first, then Lydia with Marguerite bringing things to a close.

After a prologue set in 1939 in which Amélie enters Lydia’s room, determined to find evidence of a relationship between Lydia and her husband, instead discovering something else we return to Paris in 1897. It begins when Amélie meets Henri for the first time at a friend’s wedding, where he was the best man and she maid of honour.

Of all the people she could have been seated next to at the wedding feast, this unkempt young man, all read hair and rough beard, is the last person she’d have hoped for: Amélie approaches her seat at the head table, which is strewn with crystal decanters, fine china and flowers in full bloom, and averts her eyes before he can strike up a conversation. […]

Could Juliette not have seated Amélie on the other side fo the table, next to the groom’s brother? He looks approachable, without seeming too maniacal. At twenty-five years old, contrary to societal expectations and pressure from friends her age, Amélie isn’t desperate for marriage, just for some stimulating conversation for an evening … although she wouldn’t be opposed to more.

Eventually though, they break the ice, and Amélie finds herself warming to him and they will dance before the evening is out. She discovers a man trained to be a lawyer, but rejecting the profession; instead taking up art, taking lessons at the academie, but struggling to find his own style.

Amélie is a milliner, hoping one day to have her own hat boutique. Her parents are chauffeur and housekeeper for a rich Parisian couple, who treat them well, Madame giving a valuable ring and some other gems as a wedding present. Later the Huberts will turn out to have been living on credit, and Amélie’s parents will lose their jobs in the scandal. Shockingly Madame Hubert tries to reclaim the wedding present, but too late, Amélie had pawned the ring to buy Henri a Cezanne painting which would inspire him to finally find his style, and become the leading artist of the Fauves. He, Derain and others would be wilder than the post-Impressionists in their colour choices. And it was Henri’s striking portrait of Amélie wearing one of her hats that would catapult him into the limelight and kickstart his career as an artist.

Relocated to the South of France, with Marguerite now living with them and two sons of their own, the years go by, and Lydia takes over the story. The first couple of chapters detail how she fled Tomsk when the Revolution happened in 1917, first to a Russian enclave in China, then eventually to Paris, and south to Nice in 1931. This is where she got a job in a bar and ends up marrying Boris, the owner – ultimately a mistake. Worn out by the long days, she spots an ad for a companion for a housebound lady. That is Amélie. The pair get on well, but as the weeks go one, Lydia also begins to help Henri and later Henri will paint her too, she replaces Amélie as his muse. Amélie is naturally jealous – and we finally reach the events of the prologue!

I won’t tell you more about the story, save to save that after this climax that Amélie leaves Henri, leaving Marguerite to look after him as she takes over the narrative for the final quarter of the novel, before Haydock brings the three strands together in the epilogue.

These three women were the mainstay of Matisse’s life, and it is evident that he loved each of them dearly. Haydock has done her research really thoroughly, and brought all of them to life. Alongside the drama of the emotional rollercoaster, we get a real feel for the artist’s life, before fame beckons and existence is much more hand to mouth, and then after when time and space give room to develop in different directions. Nice and Paris give the perfect backdrop. Although Marguerite’s story takes in her horrific experiences during WWII, Haydock doesn’t dwell on Matisse’s career WWII onwards, when he would develop ‘cut outs’. Matisse biographer Hilary Spurling in her two volumes could be a stopping point for those who want to delve further into his life.

Madame Matisse shows there are no second novel blues for Sophie Haydock. The novel is never less than gripping, we are totally immersed in their world of love and art, it’s the perfect combination. It leaves me wondering though: Egon Schiele, Henri Matisse – whose women next? Picasso perhaps?

Source: Review copy – thank you. Doubleday hardback, 340 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link.