Henri Matisse

These lithographs were begun in 1950, almost at the end of the artist's life, and are from the only edition of lithographs of the cut-outs produced directly by Matisse working with Mourlot. The images reproduce his iconic pochoir designs and were incorporated into a volume of the French portfolio Verve, ‘Dernieres Oeuvres de Matisse’, also known as Verve 35/36, celebrating his last works and published posthumously by Teriade in Paris in 1958.

One morning in the summer of 1952, Matisse told his studio assistant and secretary Lydia Delectorskaya that "he wanted to see divers." Setting up at a favourite swimming pool in Cannes, the artist became uncomfortable in the fierce heat, and decided that he would create his own pool at home.

Back at his apartment in the Hôtel Régina in Nice, he asked Lydia to hang a ring of white paper at just above head height around the walls of the dining room. The paper was only interrupted by the door and windows at opposite ends of the room. The walls had been lined in raw burlap fabric, a popular wall covering during the 1950s. Upon this base Matisse proceeded to assemble a vibrant cast of swimmers, divers and sea creatures out of cut sheets of paper that had previously been painted with ultramarine blue gouache. To him, the flexibility of paper was a perfect approximation of the fluidity of water.

After Matisse's death the work was dismantled and sent to the studio of Lucien Lefebvre-Foinet in Paris for mounting. At this point the white paper and burlap background were replaced. The work was later acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and has recently undergone an extensive process of restoration. The burlap had darkened dramatically, altering Matisse's original aesthetic. This lithograph from 1958 is thus one of the only ways in which to fully appreciate the intended effect of Matisse's colour scheme.

The door and windows in the dining room split the composition into two halves, and when the lithograph was published the mural was represented as two separate prints: La Piscine I and La Piscine II. In their original setting, these works were accompanied in the same room by Femmes et Singes, which was mounted above the door.

The lithographs are in stunning condition and are becoming extremely scarce.

Referenced in the Catalogue Raisonne: Duthuit 139; Freitag 6231.

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