Tête de Femme - Poster for the Maison de la Pensée Francaise 1950 by Henri Matisse, 1869-1954

Henri Matisse, 1869-1954
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Tête de Femme - Poster for the Maison de la Pensée Francaise 1950

Lithograph in three colours derived from a specially created cut-paper maquette by Matisse and transferred to lithogrpahic stone by the Mourlot Studio. 1950. Drawn by Matise for the exhibition at the Maison de la Pensée Francaise, July 1950. From the edition of 700. Printed at Atelier Mourlot. Note: The rarest of Matisse's major posters of the 1950's.
Ref: Mourlot - Affiches Originales Matisse no 42.

Extremely fine impression with exceptionally fresh colours. On light pale cream wove poster paper. Full sheet: 758x528mm. 29 3/4 x 20 3/4ins.

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This lithograph poster is one of the mot important designs which Matisse made using the system of a cut-paper maquette subsequently transferred to lithograph stone. It was created in 1950 by Matisse for his exhibition at the ‘Maison de la Pensée Francaise’. The form of the face was a collage of cut-paper to which Matisse added his own hand-written text and also a text created from cut-out letters. The maquette was then taken to the Mourlot studio where it was transferred to lithography. Only 700 impressions of the poster were printed - a very small run for a poster. As a result of the number of examples destroyed by being pasted-up etc.fine examples have become really scarce nowadays.

The abstracted simplicity of form and the flat areas of colour pattern which Matisse created with collages of paper during the period at the beginning of the 1950’s mark one of the most inspired moments in his career as an artist. Rhythms of colour used in a manner which went far beyond the merely visual had been a vital element of his art from some 25 years earlier. However it was in the period of the ‘cut-paper’ compositions that he was able to see a way of taking them even further into the area of an independent non-descriptive, effectively abstract, role.