Focus on Dance (Matisse) and analyze the Dance (I).
In March 1909, Matisse painted a preliminary version of this work, known as Dance (I). It was a compositional study and uses paler colors and less detail. The painting was highly regarded by the artist who once called it "the overpowering climax of luminosity"; it is also featured in the background of Matisse's Nasturtiums with the Painting "Dance I", (1912).
It was donated by Nelson A. Rockefeller in honor of Alfred H. Barr Jr. to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Alfred H. Barr Jr. Museum of Modern Art Nelson A. Rockefeller