Papiers Découpés - Feuilles Rouges, Bleues et Vertes. Cut-Paper Forms - Leaf Forms in Red, Blue and Green. Project for a Cover. by Henri Matisse, 1869-1954

Henri Matisse, 1869-1954
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Papiers Découpés - Feuilles Rouges, Bleues et Vertes. Cut-Paper Forms - Leaf Forms in Red, Blue and Green. Project for a Cover.

Lithograph in colours from a cut-paper maquette by Matisse. C. 1950. Numbered in pencil from the separate edition of 200 impressions, before the projected use as a cover sheet.
Signed with the stamp. Printed at the studio of Mourlot.

Excellent impression with very fresh colours. On pale cream wove Arches paper. Excellent condition; the faintest suggestion of time toning at the extreme outer sheet edges. Full margins. Sheet: 19 1/2 x 25 7/8ins. Image: 14 3/8 x 18 7/8ins (366x480mm).

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It was at the end of the 1940?s, when eighty years old and increasingly infirm, that Matisse embarked on a new style which was to prove to be one of the greatest achievements of his art, the idea of creating images with collages of cut paper painted in strong colours. Colour had long had an importance in his painting independent of its descriptive visual role. By using pieces of paper pre-painted with the strong vibrant colours he liked, cutting them into abstracted but strongly anthropomorphic forms and collaging them to the sheet surface he found he was able to dispense with the need to paint visible objects and work with just the colour itself. The great works of this period have become amongst his most celebrated creations.

From the moment he first had the idea of the cut-paper images Matisse thought about how this could be applied to printmaking. In the case of the celebrated Jazz series stencils were cut to match the cut-paper forms and images printed using the stencils. In many cases, however, working usually with Mourlot Matisse created a cut-paper maquette the shapes of which were then transferred through tracing to stone and the images printed by lithography. It was in this way that the image above was created.

The complete details of Matisse?s work with Mourlot on lithographs from cut-paper designs still seem to need some research. The lithograph above was printed at Mourlot?s studio in the period 1949-52, no impressions appear to have been pencil signed.