Henri Matisse. Cut-outs. Drawing With Scissors

Drawing with scissors: The revolutionary late-period work by Matisse 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 of our original prize-winning XL volume 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. 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."