George Gershwin1898 - 1937

George GershwinSome interesting facts:• American Composer who wrote all kinds of music - classical pieces, popular songs,

musical comedy songs for stage and movies

• George along with his brother, Ira, was a typical boy whose interests lay in active outdoor activities

• At age of 10, he happened to overhear a friend play at piece of Dvorak on the violin; He was fascinated by what he had heard and started to teach himself how to play piano

• He started taking piano classes; He loved the classics – Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin. • His teacher insisted that George was a genius so he didn’t charge for the lessons.• The teacher wanted him to be a concert pianist, but George was crazy about popular

music, especially jazz.• At the age of 15, a family friend got him a job as a song-plugger• At the age of 19, he started working for Max Dreyfus; His first big hit was “Swanee,”

which sold over two million copies. It took George 10 minutes to write Swanee and he earned $10,000 in royalties.

• Rhapsody in Blue, a group of musical paragraphs that are put together in a group and can be mixed up and still sound like they belong together. So, what about “Blue”?

Henri Matisse (on-ree Ma-teese)

1869 - 1954

Henri Matisse

Some interesting facts:• He studied law in Paris and after passing the French bar exam, worked as a law clerk

• He began painting at the age of 21 during a long illness

• He gave up his job as a law clerk and became an artist.

• His art is vibrant and full of joy, reflecting the kind and happy person he was in life.

• After trying a number of artistic styles, he and some of his artist friends began to

develop their own style of painting

• Matisse and his friends were called “Les Fauves” (le fov)— French for “wild beasts”—by

a leading art critic This art movement is called Fauvism (foe-vism)

PThe Purple Robe

Woman with a Hat, Henri Matisse 1905. An oil on canvas, it depicts Matisse's wife, Amelie.

The Family of the Artist, 1911

Second Act

La Gerbe (“The Sheaf”) 1953, Goache on papercut and pasted on paper, mounted on canvas

Cover of Jazz, a book with 20 cutout pictures and handwritten words expressing Matisse’s feelings about being

an artist. Created at the age of 73.

EXTRAS

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs