Henri Matisse
(1869-1954)

GALLERY C presents
THE GRAPHIC WORKS OF HENRI MATISSE
July 20 - September 4, 2012

WHILE most famous for his brilliantly colored paintings, Matisse was also a dedicated printmaker and experimented throughout his career with the techniques of etching, lithography, linoleum cuts, monotypes, and acquatints.

AFTER 1930 his main energies as a printmaker were dedicated to creating limited-edition fine-quality book illustrations, as well as magazine covers, for his publisher friend Efstatios Teriade in Paris. Matisse's most famous covers for Teriade's fine arts magazine VERVE include its very first issue of December 1937, its December 1938 issue, and its famous June 1940 issue which went to press as the Germans entered Paris. His most famous book
collaboration with Teriade was the groundbreaking JAZZ in 1947.

FROM the late 1930's and for the rest of his career Matisse became obsessed with the utilization of paper cutouts to create prints and illustrations. This rather odd method fulfilled his artistic vision of unifying line (form) and color.

USING a large pair of scissors, he cut shapes out of sheets of heavy paper pre-painted in gouache with intense and pure colors, and then arranged and rearranged the shapes on plain paper until satisfied with the composition. Sometimes he would take days or even weeks during this process. The shapes were based on his interpretation of forms in nature (such as tropical leaves) and the human form, but it was his amazing color sense as well as the composition which renders these works so striking to the viewer.

TO create the actual prints, Matisse's lithographer would make a stencil from the final arrangement and, using only the finest custom mixed colors to match the gouache cutouts, would apply the colors to paper via the stencils. Matisse directed every step of the production and was a stickler for perfection. Many of the prints required up to thirty different colors, and each had to be applied via a separate process. Matisse insisted on this extremely expensive method of production, and Teriade acceded to the artist's demands.

Matisse joyously felt that with his cutouts he was truly free to work with color itself. "Instead of drawing and then applying color, I draw direct with color," he said. He believed in his final years that this technique became his primary artistic medium and legend, even surpassing his paintings. He felt that his cutout creations met his duty as an artist: "I believe my role is to provide calm. Because I myself have need of peace."

This GALLERY C exhibition has two works where Henri Matisse himself drew the image on the surface from which the print was impressed. One is a linoleum cut from 1940; the other a stone lithograph from 1938. The other works on display are examples from his cutouts, including numerous of the famous covers for Teriade's VERVE plus several produced by the noted Paris lithography firm of Mourlot.

Original Works
VERVE Volume 1 No. 1 (Front Cover) stone lithograph, c. 1937 13 x 10 inches sold		La Danse stone lithograph, c. 1938 14 x 18 inches sold		Skater in Motion linoleum cut, c. 1939 8 x 6 inches sold
Nu Au Bracelet linocut, c. 1940 10 x 7 inches		Symphonie Chromatique (Front Cover) stencil, c. 1940 14 x 10 inches		Symphonie Chromatique (Rear Cover) stencil, c. 1940 14 x 10 inches
De La Couler stencil, c. 1945 14 x 10 inches		Female Visage stone lithograph, c. 1948 14 x 10 inches sold		VERVE Volume IX (Front Cover) stencil, c. 1958 14 x 10 inches
VERVE Volume IX (Rear Cover) stencil, c. 1958 14 x 10 inches		Zulma stencil, c. 1958 13 x 7 inches sold		Blue Nude stencil, c. 1958 14 x 10 inches sold
		Her linoleum block print, c. 1959 12 x 9 inches