This is the catalogue of the exhibition organized by New York's Museum of Modern Art, mounted at the Tate Modern in London from April to September 2014 and then at the MoMA from October 2014 until February 2015. The impetus for the exhibition was the major campaign of conservation of Matisse's huge "The Swimming Pool" cut-out, which the artist designed for his dining room in the Hôtel Régina in Nice in 1952; the Museum restored and remounted it and, in this exhibition, presents it once again to the public for the first time in over twenty years--but now, in order to reflect its original environment, it has been newly installed in a room constructed with the original proportions, details, and architecture of Matisse's dining room. This is a very major exhibition, the most extensive presentation of Matisse's cut-outs ever mounted. Although "The Swimming Pool" is its conceptual heart, the show encompasses a much wider range of works, including illustrated books, textiles, stained glass, and related drawings. The explosion of creativity and imagination that Matisse presented as the last act of his artistic life is truly amazing; it is not given to many people to invent an entirely new art form in their seventies, especially not one that vibrates with such youthful exuberance and juice as these cut-outs do. When he exhibited "Zulma" at the Salon de Mai in 1952 (at the tender age of eighty-two), critics referred to it as "the youngest and most innovative work there," and to himself as "the youngest exhibitor" (162), and in looking through this volume, I kept having to remind myself that Matisse was, in fact, really, born in 1869 and already over thirty at the turn of the century.
This remarkable body of late work is authoritatively discussed in the catalogue's nine essays, all of which were written by senior curators and conservators at the Tate, the MoMA, or New York's Metropolitan Museum. They are short and concise (about eight or nine pages on average) and generously illustrated by some seventy accompanying reproductions. Topics discussed include how the artist came upon the idea of the cut-out in the beginning; their gradual evolution from simple maquettes in the service of developing works to independent works of art on their own, and Matisse's own growing realization of what they were; their reception by critics and the public at large; the "Dance" mural for the Barnes Foundation and designs for the ballet "Rouge et Noir"; the cut-outs for the "Jazz" book; designs for the Chapel at Vence and the late monumental mural works, etc. These are all thoughtful and informative essays; I was particularly intrigued by Samantha Friedman's "Game and Endgame," which elucidates the compositional permutations of the pieces on the model of the chessboard; and by Nicholas Cullinan's "Chromatic Composition," which examines the intermediate, ambivalent position of the cut-outs between figuration and abstraction (e.g., Matisse gave his 1953 piece "The Snail" the alternative title "Composition Chromatique," much as--in a very different context--Whistler's painting slips between "Portrait of the Artist's Mother" and "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1"). There is also a fascinating technical examination of the paints, papers, mounting practices, etc. used in creating these works, procedures at least as complicated as those involved in any of the more traditional media. In addition, there is a sixty-page photo essay, "In the Studio," which is not merely the kind of supplementary collection of workshop photos we find in many catalogues, but an essential component in understanding Matisse's creative process: as the compositions became ever larger, the "supports" went from boards to the walls of his rooms, to the extent that, finally, the studio itself became the support. Successive photographs of the studio allow us to follow the stages of various compositions; it is an engaging and challenging exercise for the reader to try to reconstruct the artist's reasons for substituting a leaf cut-out, say, for an amoeba, or trying to see why he finally came down against using any of the various "Blue Nudes" in "The Parakeet and the Mermaid" (1952). A fine touch is that the photographs are annotated with the corresponding catalogue numbers of the works in the exhibition; this greatly facilitates the reader's comparison and use of the book as a self-educational tool.
As far as the catalogue is concerned, there are 136 plates of reproductions in excellent color (and, of course, riotous color: Picasso once claimed that only Matisse and Chagall knew what color really is). One very nice feature of the book is that the endpapers reproduce the color charts of the gouache paints produced by the manufacturer Linel, illustrating the great range of them available to Matisse, and of which he liberally availed himself: the technical analysis reveals that he used over fifteen varieties of orange, eight turquoises, and ten greens (255). No wonder the book is a carrousel of color! Most of the plates are printed full-page; for a couple of the longer works there are gatefolds, and "The Swimming Pool" itself has a double gatefold. This is altogether a very delightfully produced volume and unhurried in its design and layout. It has some selected bibliography, a checklist of the exhibited works with the usual curatorial data, and a comprehensive index. There is no dearth of books on Matisse, including on the cut-outs, but this seems to be the most complete and best illustrated one on these magnificent late works, and it's highly recommended for all Matisse aficionados.
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perfect decor!
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i love the color and size of the book, it’s so perfect for decor!! i was looking for something exactly like this for a little pop of color on my desk and it’s perfect. i wanted to put a lamp on top and i found this one and it tied it all together! super cute!
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