Henri Matisse
1869 - 1954

During his last years Henri Matisse developed a significant new technique: the paper cut-out. Despite being hampered by serious illness and confined to a wheelchair the brilliantly colourful paper cut-outs that he produced between 1950-1954 are some of the most important works of his life: So vivid were the colours in some of the gouache decoupees his doctor cautioned him to wear dark glasses!

Starting in 1953, and in collaboration with the famous Parisian lithographers Mourlot Freres, Matisse set to work on a series of lithographs depicting his colourful cut-outs. The restrictions of his illness meant that work was slow, nevertheless Matisse insisted on choosing the colours and supervising the printing of the first lithographic plates.

“Colour works you over more and more. A certain blue enters your soul. A certain red has an effect on your blood-pressure. A certain colour tones you up. It’s the concentration of timbres. A new era is opening up.” Henri Matisse

Last Works Lithographs

These lithographs, produced at the end of the artist’s life, are full of colour and act as a summary of some of the most important themes of Matisse’s art. They were produced with the virtuoso printers Mourlot Freres, one of the main lithographic studios of Paris, who printed them between 1954 and 1958 under Matisse’s supervision. They are the only edition of lithographs by Matisse, in approximately 6,000 unsigned copies, to reproduce his celebrated pochoir designs and were incorporated into a volume of the French portfolio Verve, celebrating the last works of Matisse. The lithographic plates were erased after the edition was printed.

These last works were completed from a wheelchair and colour and design reached their apotheosis in them. The original pochoirs upon which these lithographs are based were compositions constructed from pieces of cut-out paper painted with gouache and glued down onto a backing sheet. They were re-workings of motifs from Matisse’s large-format canvases and have become – like his paintings – icons of modern art.

Following on from his great mural designs, such as La Danse produced for the Barnes Foundation between 1931 and 1933, he began to experiment with his first gouache decoupee. After the war he settled in Nice and, following two serious operations for cancer, he began to discover ways of working from his bed. His collage decorations were the last flowering of Matisse’s art, including the famous series of Blue Nudes and The Snail (1952 – 1953, Tate Modern, London).

Jazz Series

These images were originally published in 1947 in an edition of 370, hand coloured using the pochoir process.

In 2004 they were beautifully reinterpreted by the famous French lithographer Mourlot.

The intensity of colour in the resulting “Jazz” lithographs is stunning.