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Overview
Henri Matisse (1869-1954)) was a French artist, famous for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker (as here) and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter.
Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts tin the opening decades of the 20th century. Although he was initially labelled a 'Fauve' (wild beast), by the 1920s he was being hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a central figure in modern art.
This etching was produced for a 'deluxe' volume, Paris 1937, published by Daragnès, to accompany the Exposition Universelle that year and was dedicated to Paris. It was made in an edition of 500 and was illustrated with plates by a roll-call of 31 famous artists of the time - though not by the Spanish Picasso. The other artists inluded André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Pierre Bonnard and Dunoyer de Segonzac.
Although the etching is a good example of Matisse's hugely appealing, schematic, linear style, it is a telling indication of the cult of celebrity that it cost Sir John Ilott, who presented it to the National Art Gallery, just GBP8 in 1963. It is now worth many times more than an infinitely more elaborate etching of a comparable theme in Amiens Cathedral by an outstanding printmaker, Auguste Lepère (Te Papa 1955-012-10), a generation older than Matisse. Less is more!
See: Wikipedia, 'Henri Matisse', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Matisse
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art May 2018