Tęte d'une Martiniquaise. Head of a Girl from Martinique. by Henri Matisse, 1869-1954

Henri Matisse, 1869-1954
Scroll down for information.
Click here to return to the list.

Tęte d'une Martiniquaise. Head of a Girl from Martinique.

Original lithograph in black ink. 1945. Exceptionally rare proof - to date the only known existing impression. No edition. Proof discovered in the archive of the Atelier Mourlot. Drawn by Matisse in Paris in November 1945 whilst working on the lithographs subsequently issued in the series 'Poesies Antillaises'. Proof printed at the Atelier Mourlot, 1945. Provenance: Fernand Mourlot Estate.

Extremely fine strong proof impression showing the stone mark. On pale cream heavy wove paper. Excellent condition (never previously frames). Full margins. Sheet: 15 7/8 x 12ins. Image to border overall: 12 1/8 x 9 1/8ins. 306x232mm.

This item is sold.
Click here to enquire about this item.

This is the only known impression of this lithograph by Matisse. He drew it sometime in the period 1945 to ?46 when he was working with a model from Martinique on a series of studies of portrait heads for an album under the title ?Poésies Antillaises?.

This proof was printed at the same time as a number of other subjects for the same series. It appears that only this impression was printed and when it was not used for the series the proof was stored away with a number of other trial impressions by Matisse in the studio of Mourlot. It was not known to Duthuit when he established the catalogue raisonné of Matisse?s graphic work and only came to light in 2003. It relates closely to other trial compositions noted in the Duthuit catalogue for the ?Poésies Antillaises? series.

Matisse greatly admired the poetry of Charles-Antoine Nau. Nau was a ?nom de plume? for Édouard Torquet. They had first met with Signac in 1903 or ?04 and they were drawn together by a love of Martinique. Many years later, after Nau?s death, Matisse decided he wanted to make an album consisting of poems by Nau inspired by Martinique and to link them to a series of lithograph studies of Martiniquaise models. He began work on the album in 1945 and by mid 1946 he wrote to Fernand Mourlot, in whose studio the editions were to be printed, to say that the project was complete. It was in late 1946 that Mourlot started printing trial impressions of the lithographs but it was not until 1953 that they were linked to the text pages printed by Fequet, and a maquette for the finished album completed. Then, however, a combination of money problems and Matisse?s illness, culminating in his death in 1954, stopped the project being completed.

In 1972 Matisse?s heirs and Fernand Mourlot agreed to print the edition of the album scrupulously following the form of the maquette as finalised by Matisse. The editions of the ?Poésies Antillaises? prints date from 1972. The lithograph here was not amongst those prints and was never editioned.