With 30,000 early-bird tickets snapped up before its opening on Thursday, Matisse by Matisse, the first exhibition of French modern art master Henri Matisse (1869-1954) in the Chinese mainland at UCCA Beijing, is undoubtedly the hottest ticket in town.

Bringing together more than 280 works by Matisse, along with handicrafts and other objects he collected, the show marks the most comprehensive presentation in China to date of the life and work of Matisse—founder and key figure of Fauvism, one of the most influential art movements of the 20^thcentury.

All showpieces, encompassing media including oil painting, sculpture, ink drawings, prints, cut-outs, illustrations, and textiles, are drawn from the collection of the Matisse Museum in Le Cateau, a museum in the artist’s hometown in the North of France. The museum holds one of the world’s largest collections of Matisse’s works, among the Matisse Museum in Nice, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, the US.