Henri Matisse. Cut‑outs, Drawing With Scissors

Towards 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 a longer period of time. 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 decoupees (gouache cut‑outs) in fact represented a revolution in modern art, a whole new medium that re‑imagined the age‑old conflict between color and line. This fresh, standard TASCHEN edition provides a thorough historical context to Matisse’s cut‑outs, tracing their roots in his 1930 trip to Tahiti, through to his final years in Nice. It includes many photos of Matisse, some rare color images, by Henri Cartier‑Bresson, Brassai, and the filmmaker Murnau and text from Matisse, Picasso, publisher E. Teriade, the poets Louis Aragon, Henri Michaux, and Pierre Reverdy, and Matisse’s son‑in‑law, Georges Duthuit.