• Matisse's designs for the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence are some of the greatest glories of 20th century art. Built and decorated between 1947 and 1951, the project included three sets of stained glass windows, upon which Matisse lavished great care. The artist's cut-out technique was perfectly suited to the design of these windows, and in the years to come his experience in Vence would filter into other projects for stained glass.

  • 'The maquette for a stained-glass window and the window itself are like a musical score and its performance by an orchestra.' - Matisse

  • ‘Those are stained glass colours. I cut the gouached paper as one cuts glass; it is just that, there, the colours are arranged to reflect light, whereas for the stained-glass they must be arranged so that the light comes through them’

     

    These projects each involved the creation of a cut-out as a maquette for the finished window, several of which were also immortalised as lithographs in the rare and sought-after survey Dernières Oeuvres de Matisse, published in 1958. These lithographs were printed by the acclaimed Atelier Mourlot and were a true labour of love. Matisse accorded his paintings and cut-outs equal status. The lithographs based on them reflect this high esteem.

  • Nuit de Noel Nuit de Noel

    Nuit de Noel

    Matisse's decorations and stained glass windows for the chapel at Vence had been completed in 1951 to great critical acclaim, and in January 1952 he was commissioned by Life magazine to produce a stained glass window to be displayed at their headquarters in New York as part of that year's Christmas celebrations. In Nuit de Noel, the artist created a scene in which the Star of Bethlehem appears over a landscape of organic forms, a joyous celebration of colour and pattern.

    In March 1952 the cut-out was submitted to master craftsman Paul Bony, who had assembled the windows at Vence. The finished window arrived at New York's Rockefeller Center on 8th December and was displayed in time for Christmas Eve in the reception of the Time-Life building. The window and cut-out were donated to the Museum of Modern Art in 1953.

    The stars in this image demonstrate Matisse's sculptural approach to making the cut-outs; instead of cutting out each star in its entirety, he assembled them from a series of individual triangles pinned together. As ever, the deceptively simple aesthetic of his later work conceals the careful processes used to achieve specific effects. This exquisite lithograph captures the wonderful luminosity and radiance that Matisse had intended for his window.

  • Poissons Chinois

    Poissons Chinois

    Matisse created Poissons Chinois in 1951 as a maquette for a stained-glass window commissioned for the villa of the art publisher Tériade.

    Tériade was a key figure in the Parisian art scene for over five decades. Born Efstratios Eleutheriades in Greece in 1897, he moved to France in 1915 to study law but soon abandoned his studies for art journalism and later, art publishing. He first met Matisse in 1929. Their collaboration continued until Matisse's death twenty-five years later. The artist was a subject or contributor to all of Tériade's publishing and editing ventures. He was a regular visitor to the gardens of his friend's villa at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat outside of Nice.

    Tériade was also responsible for publishing this lithograph in 1958.
  • Coquelicots

    Coquelicots

    Matisse had already painted poppies in numerous guises before he embarked upon this most radical expression of them in 1953. He described the colours in flowers as the primary inspiration for the way he worked to make the colours in his paintings come alive. Coquelicots, with its rhythmic arrangement of blooms, foliage and exotic fruits, is a culmination of Matisse's lifelong search for an art of serenity and balance.

    The original cut-out was executed in Matisse's customary coloured papers with additional cross-hatching in charcoal, details that have been meticulously recreated in this joyous lithograph. The design was executed as a window for the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1969.
  • Rosace Rosace

    Rosace

    The cut-out upon which this lithograph is based was the final work that Matisse completed before his death in November 1954. Nelson A. Rockefeller, businessman, art collector and future Vice President of the United States, had commissioned the artist to produce La Rosace as a memorial to his mother. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller had been a devoted patron of the arts and had entertained Matisse at her home in New York. He maintained a "vivid memory" of her, and wrote in a letter that “I am working on a commission for a rosace in glass which is destined for a small church in America as a memorial for Madame Rockefeller, who was very devout in her life. It is a job that is filling me with pleasure.”

    Matisse died before the window itself could be completed, but his daughter Marguerite discovered the cut-out in his apartment and took charge of the commission, investing it with great significance as her father's final work. Nelson Rockefeller wrote that “To have this window the last thing Matisse did and have him feel as he did about it […] because it was for Mother […] combine to make something far more beautiful and wonderful than we could have hoped for.”

    The work is one of Matisse's most abstract designs, a feature that came about as the result of a mistranslation. When he commissioned the artwork, Rockefeller was happy for Matisse to use his favourite motifs, writing that “there would, of course, be no question about leaf forms or geometric forms.” However, when this letter was translated into French, the meaning was accidentally reversed, so Matisse avoided using these images.

  • Click HERE to learn about the time that Henri Matisse got it wrong, or browse the artist's adventures in stained glass below. 

     

    Shop the Stained Glass Lithographs