Author Description

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known best as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helped to define the plastic developments of painting and sculpture in the opening decades of the 20th century, pioneering radical innovations through his extensive use of brilliant colour. The cut-outs were the last great phase of Matisse’s oeuvre. He began them in 1937 and continued working on them until his death in 1954. The cut-outs are the culmination of his life’s work, a synthesis of drawing and colour, and represent a unique moment in art history. This book presents the full range of Matisse’s cut-outs, from the early experiments to the large-scale compositions such as the Blue Nudes and the famous Icarus. It includes essays by leading Matisse scholars and a wealth of illustrations, many of which are published here for the first time.