lithograph, paper, 35.6x53.5 cm in light passe-partout, signed on plate in right corner: Henri Mattise 1952.
The work was included in a special issue of the French art magazine Verve (vol. IX, n. 35-36) entitled. "Dernieres Oeuvres de Matisse 1950-1954" (Matisse's Last Works 1950-54), celebrating the artist's last works and published posthumously by the Teriade publishing house in Paris in 1958.
Literature: Matisse. Catalogue raisonne de l'oeuvre grave Paris, Duthuit, 1983. The work is listed in the Duthuit catalog under number 139.
Henri Matisse - world-renowned painter and printmaker. Initially, he prepared to become a lawyer. However, at the age of 24 he began to study painting at the Paris School of Fine Arts. A pupil of Gustave Moreau, he initially created under the influence of the Impressionists and Japanese art. In 1905, he exhibited his works at the Autumn Salon. He soon developed his own style. Matisse filled his canvases with patches of vivid, luminous, usually strongly contrasting colors, which he often, in the interest of picture legibility, surrounded with a delicate outline. After cancer surgery, he lost his physical fitness and moved around in a wheelchair (he could not work at the easel) - the profile of his work changed then - he created paper collages from then on.
