Matisse Cut outs 40th Ed — Gilles Néret

Henri Matisse 1869 1954 was a fighting spirit Despite a cancer diagnosis in 1941 increasing frailty and the confines of a wheelchair the indomitable Frenchman never stopped in his quest to make art With what he called une seconde vie a second life he embarked on a remarkable collage period cutting and pasting pieces of colored paper into gouaches découpées of birds plants flowers and the female form Emphasizing color and contrast the cut out technique generated both striking lines and vivid juxtapositions In works such as Icarus 1943 The Blue Nude 1952 The Snail 1953 and The Sheaf 1953 clean forms and elemental structures power a compositional force that belies the work s decorative appeal at once tightly organized and infectious with joie de vivre As his work progressed Matisse s excitement with his results fueled ever larger pieces advancing from small works to vast wall sized murals As his final years approached Matisse reveled in the simplicity and brilliance of these pieces avowing Only what I created after the illness constitutes my real self free liberated In this essential introductory book we revisit this joyful final chapter of Matisse s long and prodigious career examining how the cut outs encapsulated the artist s many years exploring the possibilities of composition form and color About the series Born back in 1985 the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best selling art book collection ever published Each book in TASCHEN s Basic Art series features a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions Tanıtım Bülteninden

Toward the end of his monumental career as a painter sculptor and lithographer an elderly sickly Matisse was unable to stand and use a paintbrush for long In this late phase of his life he was almost 80 years of age he developed the technique of carving into color creating bright bold paper cut outs Though dismissed by some contemporary critics as the folly of a senile old man these gouaches decoupées gouache cut outs in fact represented a revolution in modern art a whole new medium that reimagined the age old conflict between color and line This edition of the first volume of our original award winning XXL book provides a thorough historical context to Matisse s cut outs tracing their roots to his 1930 trip to Tahiti and continuing through to his final years in Nice It includes many photos of Matisse as well as some rare images by Henri Cartier Bresson and the filmmaker F W Murnau with texts by Matisse publisher E Tériade the poets Louis Aragon Henri Michaux and Pierre Reverdy and Matisse s son in law Georges Duthuit In their deceptive simplicity the cut outs achieved both a sculptural quality and an early minimalist abstraction which would profoundly influence generations of artists to come Exuberant multi hued and often grand in scale these works are true pillars of 20th century art and as bold and innovative to behold today as they were in Matisse s lifetime About the series TASCHEN is 40 Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980 TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art anthropology and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program now more compact friendly in price and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production Tanıtım Bülteninden