Product Description
The colorful, painterly, uplifting, and often joyous works of Henri Matisse are critical in the history of modern art. Throughout his many years as a painter, the celebrated artist kept returning to one particular subject—the windowed interior. Henri Matisse: Rooms with a View explores in depth, for the first time, the full significance of the window in Matisse’s thinking about interior and exterior space.

Matisse studied and rearranged his rooms constantly; when he lived in hotels and small apartments his living quarters usually doubled as his studio. In a continuous engagement with these spaces he produced not only singular masterpieces but also developed a theme as rich as the traditional landscape or portrait. In each new phase of his art and with every change of residence, Matisse reinvented the theme of the window.

Distinguished art historian Shirley Neilsen Blum analyzes more than fifty paintings, starting with the early Studio Under the Eves (1903), a traditional darkened room with a small brilliant window, through Harmony in Red (1908), with its startling use of color, pattern, and line, to the more abstract work created during World War I such as The Piano Lesson (1916). After the war Matisse moved to Nice. Tall French windows that open upon a balcony and overlook the Mediterranean define many of the paintings from these years. By the late 1940s the window is so bound to the structure of the flattened space that it is barely differentiated from a painting or piece of tapestry hanging on the wall. The luxuriously illustrated volume culminates in one of Matisse’s greatest and most original works—the Chapel of the Rosary (1947–51) at Vence—where, instead of imitating light and color in paint, he manipulated actual light through the colored glass of the windows.

This insightful volume reveals not only the key role of the windowed interior in Matisse’s oeuvre but also presents an overview of the artist’s remarkable and varied career, and shows how his work paved the way for some of the most radical abstract painting of the twentieth century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Only Matisse can be Matisse
Excellent collection of Matisse's works. The drawings are so simple but tell a lot of the subject. All the drawings lack light but the reader is still able to see the full form of the subject. The drawings are also presented very clearly for the art student to study. ... Read more

Product Description
99 illus., 85 in full color. 9 3/8 x 12.Amazon.com Review
Let this handsome volume introduce you to the great Frenchpainter Henri Matisse through a brief but informative biography andmore than 80 full-color reproductions. Included are works from morethan five decades in various styles- -early still lifes, Mediterraneanallegories, vivid dance images, and the collages that so clearly say"Matisse." One of his last, most ambitious endeavors is astained glass for a chapel at Vence in the south of France--one of themost acclaimed ensembles of church decoration of the 20th century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Perfect Calendar...for me
I love this calendar. The reproductions are vivid -colors bright-paper fine and
the dates boxes are big enough for notes

Perfect for our "Year of Matisse"
The Art Teachers at our school are teaching a unit about Matisse to all the grade levels this year and this is perfect to go along with that idea.

Colorful but not office-appropriate
Wanted a colorful wall calendar for my office.This has all the color and brightness you could want.However, you can't tell that there is a whole nude as the artwork for one month.It simply isn't office appropriate. Would be good for home, but that was not my purpose. ... Read more

Product Description
Aged 75, Matisse felt he had said all he had to say in the medium of paint, and embarked on his next period in his career as an artist. Using only scissors and coloured paper, he produced a series of cut-outs which he published in the idiosyncratic album, "Jazz" (1947). ... Read more

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Examines Matisse's impact on modern art as well as examining his career, techniques, aesthetics, and stages of artisticdevelopment. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Color games
Henri MATISSE's first success as an artist was his Paul Cezanne-type "La liseuse" still-life, with a brown and green flowered wallpaper pattern picked up as a cloth in his later "Nature morte a l'autoportrait." But his favorite painter was actually Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, as seen in the cool greys of his "Nature morte aux peches" and "Nature morte aux raisins" still-lifes. His still-life "Grande marine grise" springboarded the empty and symmetrical freedom of a Caspar David Friedrich landscape into the Piet Mondrian-styled beaches of modern art. In fact, much of the rest of his work had a part in how twentieth-century art, with its concern over color, turned out: "La coiffure," with its enormous hanging arm from Michelangelo's "Night" figure clasping hand to head, for a modern art growing out of twentieth-century anxieties; "Collioure" series, with figures recognizable from flat colors and with meadows dyed red against green, for a dazzling light from a Eugene Delacroix-type greatest outburst of opposing colors; "Le compotier" creating, not imitating, life by giving up color as description for Japanese print-type color as expression; "La desserte" showing dark tones coloring more brilliantly than light; "Homme nu," as an Auguste Rodin-type striding figure, taking one side in the twentieth-century artistic question over form holding its own edges against color or shaping from spreading color, as in "Bronze et fruit" still-life and his Paul Gauguin-type "Nu assis" figure almost lost against the arbitrarily patterned sunlight; "Interieur au rideau Egyptien" and "L'interieur rouge" finalizing Fauvism by energizing light and uniting picture parts; "Lecon de piano," as his masterpiece experiment abstracting garden greens and room colors; "Luxe, calme et volupte" escaping into the grandly simple Cezanne style of "Trois baigneuses" and leading into Symbolism; "Madame de Matisse," as a specific person in an alertly balanced pose, just by a Constantin Brancusi-type sculptured eyebrow and nose against blue sending off grey for the curved shaping of her head, for Amedeo Modigliani's and twentieth-century art's figures directly shown as being physical presences and filling human roles; "Nature morte, Seville" riotously patterning color; "Le reve" balancing field and figure, in-between areas and physical presence in pink arabesquing against blue; "La serpentine" collecting light along arabesqued thick lower legs and thin thighs into a separately modelled physical effect, as later seen in his own "Jeannette" busts and in Pablo Picasso; "Le the," with a Cubist-type head for his daughter Marguerite; and "Vue de St Tropez" landscaping Paul Signac-type energetically brushstroked color. So, through appropriately chosen illustrations and carefully organized text, the author leaves us on excellent terms with what Matisse did for art: I particularly like the attention that Lawrence Gowing gives to the cut-paper works, such as "La danse" and "Le rouge et le noir," and to the Vence chapel stained glass, as special favorites for my sculptress mother and artist sister. Unfortunately, the book is now out-of-print: so any readers not tracking down a stray copy might want to look into MATISSE: THE WONDER OF COLOR by Xavier Girard, HENRI MATISSE: CUT-OUTS ALBUM, HENRI MATISSE: THE VENCE CHAPEL, and MATISSE IN TAHITI by Paule Laudon. ... Read more

Product Description
If painting was for Matisse the expression of a "state of condensed sensations," his engravings consisted of "Traits Essentiels" or "essential lines:" they were recordings of a single sensation, and rarely passed through any series of stages or reworkings. In fact, engraving was a refuge. Marguerite Duthuit-Matisse, co-author of a catalogue raisonne of her father's prints, describes the graphic work he often executed at the end of a painting session as an "agreeable conclusion." After several experiments with drypoint, Matisse turned toward woodcut in 1906 (and gave it up almost immediately), then worked simultaneously in monotype and etching, where he achieved an astonishing tension between surface and line. Later, he turned to linocut and to sugarlift aquatint. It is on these projects that the selection in Traits Essentiels focuses: Lithography, which Matisse practiced from 1906 to 1952, and with which he was less experimental, is excluded. Text in French only. ... Read more

Product Description
Lavishly produced in oversize format, here is the complete illustrated catalogue of a landmark new exhibition devoted to the artist--the largest ever assembled--to be held at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from September through January. Includes biographical notes, a chronology, and introductions to each major period of Matisse's career. 320 colorplates reproduce every painting and cutout in the exhibition; 92 black-and-white plates illustrate the sculptures, drawings, and prints; and 180 illustrations show related works not in the exhibition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

this is a book that I have used for several years
Matisse is an artist that will grow with you. I often return to this or other Matisse books and find ways of seeing painting that I have never contemplated before. What's nice about this Retrospective is that it does a first rate job of covering the artists entire life in detail.

When I first got this book, I skipped over most of the writing and just soaked in the pictures (The quality of reproductions here is very well done). What will engage you in the long run are the thousands of notes that the compilers have used to compliment the pictures. Most of these notes I myself do not find of interest, though they are helpful if you would like to know of his personal life. But a percentage of these deal with the paintings and how they were created. For myself, it was illuminating to see photo documentation of Matisses work as it was transformed over time.

This is not a book that will help you gain access to the deeper/scholarly realms of Matisse. I would have loved to have had the compilers here introduce every drawing and print that the artist had completed over his life. Most of the secondary work of Matisse is not to be found here. On the other hand, I don't think that most people would be interested in seeing sketch book work.

If you like Matisse and want the book that does the best job of introducing the artist, this is the one to get.

An essential sourcebook
This oversized volume documents a retrospective exhibition devoted to Matisse which was held at the Museum of Modern Art in late 1992 and early 1993.The largest Matisse exhibition ever staged, it is unlikely that thismassive curatorial event will ever be repeated.For devotees of Matisse,this book is an essential addition to your library, although there islittle here that has not been previously published and discussed many timesin earlier exhibitions.I think this book is more useful for thoseindividuals who have just been introduced to this artist's work - it is amarvelous one-volume survey, clearly organized into seven chronologicalsections covering the entirety of Matisse's life, and showcasing his finestpictures.For those readers looking for more than just reproductions,however, the book is less satisfying.Elderfield's introductory essay isvirtually incomprehensible for anyone who isn't already familiar with thematisse literature, and is poorly coordinated with the catalogue itself -there is no discussion of the individual paintings actually in theexhibition, or their interrelationships.The chronology of the artist'slife is useful, but no more than bare bones history.This book is chieflya visual pleasure and a fine document of a great exhibition.However,having seen the exhibition myself, I must inform the reader that many ofthe photographs in the book were received from non-MOMA sources, and thereare variations in quality among the images.The bulk of the reproductionsare just too dark, lending Matisse's pictures a muddy look that they do notpossess in reality.I wish someone had bothered to compare the photos tothe paintings before they sent the book to press.Still, if you buy onlyone book on Matisse, this should be it.

Covers all aspects of Matisse and his works!
This book goes through all of his different periods in his life; including many full-color plates which display the pictures described in the text. Definately a must have! ... Read more

Product Description
These richly illustrated art books cover several centuries of great artists and their masterworks. From Rubens to Dali, each artist's life and times, influences, legacy, and style are explored in depth. Each book analyzes a particular painting with regard to the history surrounding it, the techniques used to create it, and the hidden details that make up the whole, providing a thorough look at each artist's career. Included is a bibliography, a chronological reading of principle works, a brief life history, and listings of public collections featuring each artist. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Matisse: Master of Pure Color -- His Life in Paintings
A wonderful collection of Matisses art. Easy to read and useful in the creation of my own art pieces.

great stocking stuffers
These stickers are approx. 1 3/4" x 2 3/4" and include the titleof the painting and artist name.They are clear, good quality despite beingsticker size.There are many applications for these including stationary,envelopes, etc. or make great stocking stuffers. ... Read more

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More than one hundred color plates, accompanied by reactions and comments from critics and contemporaries, record the career of the French sculptor, cut-out artist, and painter of exotic, brightly colored nudes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Comprehensive Overview Of The Artist.
This excellent book traces Henri Matiste's Life and work from his student years, through his various stylistic periods, to his death.Containing over 100 beautiful colorplates, this hugh monograph includes several interviews with the artist conducted during his active years and are siginifcant because they are published for the very first time in english.There are several critiques of the artist's works, and many from Guillaume Apollinaire which are rather interesting.Matiste scholar and Brooklyn College Professor Jack Flam has truly selected the very best and the strongest of Henri Matiste's works, making this an exceptional book on this great modern artist. ... Read more

Product Description
Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso have long been seen as the twin giants of modern art, as polar opposites but also as complementary figures. Between them they are the originators of many of the most significant innovations of 20th-century painting and sculpture, but their relationship has rarely been explored in all of its closeness and complexity. In spite of their initial rivalry, the two masters eventually acknowledged one another as equals, becoming, in their old age, increasingly important to one another both artistically and personally. From the time of their initial encounters in 1906 in Gertrude and Leo Stein's Paris studio until 1917, they individually produced some of the greatest art of the 20th century and maintained an openly competitive relationship brimming with intense innovation. This period saw them create such works as Picasso's majestic "Woman with a Fan" of 1908 and Matisse's great portrait of his wife of 1913. Matisse responds to Synthetic Cubism in his "Piano Lesson" of 1916 and Picasso comes back in turn with a new, more decorative Cubism in "Three Musicians" of 1921. The 20s saw them grow apart, as Matisse moved from Paris to Nice and Picasso became involved with the Surrealists, but the 30s brought them together again, through their sheer fame and devotion to reality-based art. Their story continues until Matisse's death in 1954, when Picasso paid his friend and colleague tribute in his series Women of Algiers, of which he said, "When Matisse died, he left his odalisques to me as a legacy." Matisse Picasso presents the artists' oeuvres in groupings that reveal the affinities but also the extreme contrasts of their artistic visions. Published to accompany the landmark exhibition, a joint effort of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate Modern, London; the Réunion des musées nationaux/Musée Picasso and the Musée national d'art moderne/Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Matisse Picasso is the first major examination of the fascinating relationships between their art, their careers, and their lives. Thirty-four essays, each by a member of the exhibition's curatorial team, focus on a particular moment in the artists' evolving relationship. The authors present in-depth analyses of specific aspects of the unique artistic dialogue between Matisse and Picasso as reflected in selected juxtapositions of each artist's works. These texts are accompanied by an introductory history, commentary on the public perception of important artistic relationships, and an extensive chronology.

Picasso sees everything. --Henri Matisse

By Anne Baldassari, Elizabeth Cowling, John Elderfield, John Golding, Isabelle Monod-Fontaine and Kirk Varnedoe.

Hardcover, 9.75 x 12.25 in., 368 pages, 220 color and 60 b&w ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent
This is an excellent book with great reproductions of artwork.It also compares the two artist's.This is a good book for any artist to have.
It arrived as described in a timely manner.

Blockbuster
A blockbuster exhibition and a blockbuster catalogue. This book is hugely informative, very well organized, chronologically, with a constant comparison of both masters. Every masterpiece by Picasso is followed by one by Matisse and vice-versa. It is a break-through study on the mutual influence of both artists, an attempt once tried by the critic Yves-Alain Bois with less success. This book is required material for any arts library. The authors are all authorities in this particular field and vouch for the quality of the accompanying text.

Whew!
Huge, very heavy book of almost 400 pages.Wonderful reproductions in color of their work, and, for the most part, easily understood prose.I think I learned a lot.I know I learned that I like Picasso better than Matisse, whom I found to be basically cold and severe, too intellectual in his art.How he was personally this book does not say.You do get a little more sense of Picasso than Matisse.The book focuses on how these two artists played off each other's work almost all their artistic lives.And as such, it definitely succeeds.It was actually printed in conjunction with a major exhibition of these two, in Paris, London, and New York.A must for all art lovers. ... Read more

Product Description
This exquisite volume opens the doors of Matisse's atelier to reveal the artist's most intimate work.

For Henri Matisse, drawing was an exercise as personal as it was essential to his art. Reproduced on elegant stock these black and white and gently colored sketches allow the viewer to appreciate the quality of Matisse's lines, their confidence and ease, as well as the intense relationship between artist and model. Matisse's joie de vivre, his love of beauty, and his fascination with the human body are everywhere in evidence in this lovely book that is a pleasure to hold. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This is a Straight Foreword Collection of Matisse's Erotic Sketches
Thirty-four sketches and an introduction by Norbert Wolf printed in a 64-page format make up this hardbound volume of the Prestel's "Erotic Sketchbook" series. The brief text introduction is only five pages in length and printed in English with another five pages devoted to the German translation. Despite it's brevity, the text is excellent and includes many quotes from Matisse about his art including the following: "I paint odalisques (female slaves or concubines in a harem) in order to paint the nude. Otherwise, how is the nude to be painted without being artificial? But also I saw they exist. I was in Morocco. I saw them."
Frankly I was somewhat disappointed in this book but not because the work wasn't up to par. I was simply expecting to see some erotic works that I was not already familiar with. Unfortunately for me, I was already aware of all of the thirty-four images included in the book. Since the originals are spread out all over the world, many in private collections, this volume at least gathers the various images together in one place for easy reference. The book is easily worth the cost for the serious Matisse admirer.
Wolf also tips the reader off to another book by Lydia Delektorskaja, who was Matisse's assistant and model for four years (1934-39). One of his paintings of her recently sold for $2.2 million dollars. Unfortunately, the only copy currently available of his model's 360 plus page story is rather expensive and the text is in French. Like many people I'll be looking for an English Edition of the book. ... Read more

Product Description
Henri Matisse was an extremely versatile and productive artist. Although he was an outstanding sculptor and draftsman, he is most widely known and loved for his paintings. Explore Matisse with John Jacobus' informative, engaging commentary. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Find another book
Matisse did some good interior pictures but many run-of-the-mill nudes and this book has way too many of those

Nicely written but not exactly what I wanted
This book is a nice overview of the work and life of Matisse. There are many beautiful and brilliantly described colorplates. It is a complete overview of his work. It also makes a beautiful coffee table piece that may inspire conversation.

I reasoned that because the author choose to feature a later piece by Matisse on the cover the book might emphasize his later work. But when I got the book his later work was only briefly talked about and only 2 of the colorplates were after 1940s.

Overall it is a nice book to get a sense of Matisse, his work and his life. ... Read more

Product Description
The latter years of Matisse’s career made up what he described as his "second life". This catalogue is dedicated to Matisse’s late work and provides a greater understanding of the artist through his correspondence with the writer André Rouveyre. It begins with a serious operation Matisse underwent in 1941 and ends with his death in 1954, a period of 13 years during which there was an extraordinary blossoming of his art. Rouveyre was a novelist and artist dreaded for his cruel portraits, and an old friend from Matisse’s student days. These letters (almost 1200 of them) provide unprecedented insight into Matisse’s creative process and artistic aspirations, at a time when he was redefining his modes of expression. Many are adorned with drawings and decorations and for the first time this catalogue relates these letters to works produced, or in production, at the time they were written: oils on canvas, drawings, illustrated books, tapestries, stained-glass window maquettes, and large and small gouache cut-outs. ... Read more

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Spectacular Record of an Important Exhibition
Before "Matisse: A Second Life" appeared, an exhibition focusing solely on the late work of this greatest of French masters had never been seen in France.Unlike most exhibition catalogues, this book is no mere compendium of pretty pictures, but a serious contribution to art history which will have lasting scholarly value long after the show's close.The "Second Life" of the title refers to the last few years of Matisse's existence, from about 1940 to 1954.After the chaos which accompanied the fall of France to German troops, Matisse fell ill with duodenal cancer and had to endure a serious operation early in 1941.Matisse nearly died during the operation, and remained a semi-invalid for the rest of his life (making the achievement of his last years all the more compelling).Rather than allow his health problems to embitter him, Matisse saw his tenuous survival as a new lease on life, a blessing of additional time in which to realize his fondest ambitions.Ironically, despite - or perhaps because of - his health problems, the 1940s were to see an extraordinary flowering of Matisse's art, from the creation of some of his most highly regarded paintings to the invention of a completely new medium - the famed paper cut-outs."A Second Life" is the first exhibition to survey this critical period in any detail.Organized around the correspondence between Matisse and his friend, poet and artist Andre Rouvyere, this exhibition brought together the insights available to us via this exchange of letters and presented these invaluable keys to the mystery of creation alongside a number of Matisse's most important works from the period.The book itself is beautiful - the color plates are of the finest quality and the spare, elegant design is ravishing.While may of the works here - such as the plates from 1947's "Jazz" - are world-famous, "Matisse: A Second Life" also shows many less well-known (but not lesser) works.Careful study of these images demonstrates that the cut-outs did not develop in isolation, but in fact were the solution to Matisse's long-held desire to unite color and drawing into a single medium, an effect which he achieved in oil paint between 1942 and 1948 after a lifetime of experiment.For those who love Matisse's work or are curious about how artists think, this book is an essential addition to your library. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1913, outraged by Matisse's painterly violations of the female body, students of the Art Institute of Chicago found him guilty of "artistic murder" and proceeded to burn in effigy three of his works, including the "Blue Nude" of 1907. Since that time, Matisse's paintings of women have remained a source of deep controversy, feminist critics finding them an "assertion of virilty" whilst others have fallen back on purely formalist defences of the artist's "disinterested paint". In this work, John Elderfield, one of today's most highly regarded art historians and an expert on Matisse, traces the development of Matisse's feminine representations from the "Carmelina" of 1903-1904 through to the odalisques of the Nice period in the 1920s, offering a reinterpretation of some of the artist's best-known works. The author shows that Matisse was not, as his legend suggests, simply a painter of quintessentially male pleasures, but rather that he also used his female models as a means of self-analysis and identification. Eschewing reductive readings, Elderfield returns the images to their art historical sources and opens out the interpretative possibities of these enigmatic paintings. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Very Rare But Essential Volume
French Artist Henri Matisse (1869-1954) just got better as he got older.Never as fluent a talent as his rival Picasso, Matisse instead worked for a lifetime to achieve an unparalleled immediacy and spontaneity in his art.Personally, the 1940s were difficult years for Matisse: He witnessed the fall of France to the Nazi legions and separated from his wife permanently in 1940, and in 1941 he developed a case of serious intestinal cancer.The operation nearly killed him and left him a semi-invalid for the remaining 13 years of his life.The "Themes and Variations" suite, begun in September 1941 and completed in March 1942, may be his most important sustained meditation on the art and philosophy of the line.Although Matisse is best remembered as an absolute master of color, line in fact forms the vital substructure of his investigation into the nature of reality and of vision.This volume - now sadly out-of-print and very hard to find - makes available to the public all 168 images produced in the suite. The subjects are familiar, even traditional - still lives, arrangements of flowers and fruit, seated female
figures - but the method is extraordinary.As in the notebooks of Leonardo or Picasso's 1930s Vollard Suite, Matisse approaches drawing as an intellectual act.Each group of drawings begins with the "theme" - a heavily-reworked charcoal - and continues with the "variation" - anywhere from 3 to 16 treatments of the same basic image done in pen-and-ink (for the most part) or conte crayon (rarely).Each "theme" treats the friable medium of charcoal as the equivalent of oil paint; although the final image is composed of a few simple lines, Matisse achieves volume and depth through the pentimenti left behind by previous versions which were erased in the search for the simplest form.In some cases, the effect of the multiple erasures creates an uncanny sense of movement and the passage of time, as in time-lapse or superimposition photography.The "variations,"on the other hand, offer a different perspective.Most people have very little idea just how difficult pen-and-ink drawing really is - one mistake, one hesitation, a single error in judgment, and all is ruined.The "variations" here are truly masterful.One's eyes are literally dazzled by the fluency, spontaneity and immediacy of Matisse's line and his ability to create planar space and the illusion of color in images that lack conventional shading.The method itself is nearly Chinese or ancient Egyptian - a search for eternal forms below the surface of reality. Yet reality itself is a shifting surface in these drawings - Matisse changes angles, poses, and linear weights constantly,emphasizes a different aspect of the basic composition, zooms in for a close-up or out for a wide-angle view, and even alters the format from vertical to horizontal and back again.In the drawings which examine human subjects (mostly his favorite models Lydia Delectorskaya and the beautiful Turkish princess Nezy Chawkat), the appearance of the models also shifts, from near-portraiture to abstract signs and back again (seen for instance here in the lovely juxtaposition of the last drawing of the M series with the "theme"of the P series; one is an utterly simple portrait of Madame Lydia done in graphite, the other is a monumental charcoal of the same woman, her features now reduced to a blank oval).Logically, most of us know that "reality" is ever-changing - the lessons of particle physics teach us that what we see as discrete objects are just vibrating energies held in suspension - but intellectually, most of us refuse this knowledge, preferring instead to live in a world of solid, eternal, unchanging forms.Line - a basic human invention which exists itself nowhere in nature - separates forms and planes, cutting space into separate objects and providing a border to nature's endless flow.Thus, Matisse's technique uses the most basic instrument of recording reality to 'recode" the world instead.Each "variation" seems to make a final statement, yet there is always another perspective, another angle, another shift in viewpoint.In some instances - like the famous "F" series, in which the model appears to slowly awaken from a dream - the effect Matisse creates is cinematic, suggestive of the passage of time.In this reviewer's opinion, the suite is the most intellectual and abstract linear investigation of reality in the 20th century and demonstrates that the image can be just as philosophical as the word.This fine book itself is a mini-masterpiece - the drawings are superbly reproduced and the constant shift in format from vertical to horizontal forces the reader to physically engage with each image. As with the best Dover publications, the binding is secure and the book may be consulted frequently without falling apart.Why this important volume is out-of-print is a mystery to me, for no art library can be considered complete without it.Available through dealers of rare books, and usually for a price of not less than $100, but worth every penny to the right person. A must-have.

A necessary reprint, but the text should have been included
Lovers of fine drawings and of Matisse should definitely add this book to their collections.Dover has reprinted a volume originally published in Paris in 1943 as a series of loose portfolios.The drawings were done byMatisse from spring 1941 to summer 1942, and comprise a thematically andtechnically linked suite lettered from A to P.Each set consists of a"theme" drawing done in heavily reworked charcoal, accompanied bya series of "variations" executed in ink, pencil, or crayon.Thesubjects are elegantly dressed women (mostly his model, LydiaDelectorskaya) and arrangements of flowers and fruit.These subjects areinterwoven to create a stunning tapestry of draughtsmanship, suggestive ofa timeless realm of beauty bathed in the brilliant light of the Coted'Azur.Despite the order of the drawings, they may be examined by thereader as he or she pleases, but I find that viewing the book inchronological sequence produces the sensation of viewing a filmstrip.Therapid execution of many of the drawings creates a sensation of overlapping moments, an illusion of shifting time which almost places you in Matisse'smind as the works were made.I would have given this book 5 stars (for theart alone), but the editors made two mistakes: first, they omitted theintroductory text written by Louis Aragon, and second, the bulk of thedrawings are reproduced horizontally, which makes the book somewhatdifficult to use (the original edition, which was unbound did not have thisproblem).Also, the cover design is less than inspired.Otherwise, thisis a necessary addition to any art library, especially since the originaledition of this book is quite rare. ... Read more