This enthralling and comprehensive new book on Henri Matisse is an eye-opener for all students and art lovers interested in early twentieth-century art. Taking fifty of Matisse’s most iconic works of art, John Cauman provides an accessible narrative about the man and his work, deciphering the themes, methods and intentions of this truly great artist.

Chronologically spanning from the late nineteenth century to the mid 1950s, each painting, drawing and mural is described and analysed in beautiful detail, within the context of the period, so that the reader can really understand what the artist was hoping to achieve with each work. The paintings are prefaced by an informative introduction that presents the milieu and key characters that featured in Matisse’s life.

Among his most famous works, this book includes Luxe, calme et volupté (1904), Le Bonheur de vivre (The Joy of Life) (1905–6), Self-Portrait in a Striped Shirt (1906), Blue Nude (Memory of Biskra) (1907), Bathers by a River (1909-17), Harmony in Red (1908), Dance I (1909), Entrance to the Casbah (1912-13),  Pianist and Checker Players (1924), Still Life with a Magnolia (1941), Memory of Oceania (1951–2) and The Snail (1953).

About the Author:

John Cauman is an independent curator and writer on late 19th-century and early 20th-century art. He studied at Columbia and Bennington before receiving his PhD from City University of New York with a dissertation on Matisse and America: 1905-1933. He has contributed to various publications including Inheriting Cubism and co-curated the exhibition ‘Matisse and American Art’ at Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey, 2018.

Le Bonheur de Vivre. The vital colors and shapes of a modernist master

The work of Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954) reflects an ongoing belief in the power of brilliant colors and simple forms. Though famed in particular for his paintings, Matisse also worked with drawing, sculpture, lithography, stained glass, and collage, developing his unique cut-out medium when old age left him unable to stand and paint.

Matisse's subjects were often conventional: nudes, portraits, and figures in landscapes, Oriental scenes, and interior views, but in his handling of bold color and fluid draftsmanship, he secured his place as a 20th-century master. It was Matisse's palette that particularly thrilled the modern imagination. With vivid blue, amethyst purple, egg-yolk yellow, and many shades beyond he liberated his work from a meticulous representation of reality and sought instead a vital harmony, often referring to music as an inspiration or analogy for his work.

From vast patterned panels to simple and tender portraits, this book introduces the full reach and creativity of Matisse's career, spanning his early work within the Fauvism movement right through to his latter-year projects such as Jazz and the Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence.

About the series:

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

A color harmony that is analogous to a musical composition

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is known not only as one of the most important French painters of the 20th century but also as co-founder and leading exponent of Fauvism. His work reflects an ongoing quest for the expressive power of pure, brilliant colors and simple forms; as a result, the realistic presentation of nature often retires to a secondary position.

For Matisse, color did not serve as a tool for the expression of subjective feelings, but rather became the equivalent of light itself: it functioned as a pure medium in the creation of an autonomous pictorial space: "Out of my fruitful work with discovered tones there must emerge a vital color harmony, a harmony that is analogous to a musical composition."

As a creative artist, Matisse was not only a painter, but also experimented with other materials: he produced glass windows and theatre designs and created significant sculptures in bronze, ceramic and clay. In old age, confined to a wheelchair, he created collages with coloured paper, glue, and scissors: his famed gouache cut-outs.

About the Series:

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 colour illustrations with explanatory captions

The author:

Volkmar Essers, born in 1944, studied art history, archaeology, and German in Bonn, Munich and Berlin. In 1972 he earned his doctorate with a work on the sculptor Johann Friedrich Drake. For many years, he has been the curator for the Art Collection of North Rhine-Westphalia, where he organized exhibitions of Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock and other artists. Essers has also published numerous essays and books on art of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Fauvist. Brilliant colour, simple forms, and purity of expression are the hallmarks of  Matisse's work

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is known not only as one of the most important French painters of the 20th century but also as co-founder and leading exponent of Fauvism. His work reflects an ongoing quest for the expressive power of pure, brilliant colours and simple forms; as a result, the realistic presentation of nature often retires to a secondary position.

For Matisse, color did not serve as a tool for the expression of subjective feelings, but rather became the equivalent of light itself: it functioned as a pure medium in the creation of an autonomous pictorial space: "Out of my fruitful work with discovered tones there must emerge a vital colour harmony, a harmony that is analogous to a musical composition."

As a creative artist, Matisse was not only a painter but also experimented with other materials: he produced glass windows and theater designs and created significant sculptures in bronze, ceramic and clay. In old age, confined to a wheelchair, he created collages with coloured paper, glue, and scissors: his famed gouache cut-outs.

About the Series:

Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Art Series features:

- a detailed chronological summary of the artist's life and work, covering the cultural and historical importance of the artist
- approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions
- a concise biography

This two-volume edition includes a perfect facsimile of Matisse's seminal cut-out work: Jazz. At last, readers can experience Jazz as if holding the 1947 original.

The reputation of Henri Matisse (1869–1954) as the most important artist of the modern era is rivaled only by Picasso — who himself said, "All things considered, there is only 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. So at almost 80 years of age, he developed a new technique: he drew shapes on colored paper, cut them out and pasted them together. These gouaches decoupées (gouache cut-outs) represented a revolution in modern art, yet their simplicity was dismissed by many critics as the folly of a senile old man. Later critics realized that Matisse had found a brilliant solution to the age-old conflict between line and color — one that would profoundly influence generations of artists to come.

Printed in exactly the same colors, using the same paper and inks as the 1947 edition, the facsimile volume allows readers to experience Jazz in its original, unbound form.

The second volume provides a thorough historical context to Matisse's cut-outs, tracing their genesis in his 1930 trip to Tahiti, through to his final years in Nice. Also included are other pivotal works from his later career, including his contributions to Verve magazine and his exquisite decoration of the Vence Chapel. Includes rare and historic photographs by Matisse taken in Tahiti, as well as photos of Matisse by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, and the filmmaker Murnau. The text is supplemented by quotations from Matisse, Picasso, E. Tériade (the publisher of Jazz and Verve), the poets Louis Aragon, Henri Michaux, and Pierre Reverdy, and Matisse's son-in-law, Georges Duthuit.

- Printed with 18 different colors on a small offset press, only 4 pages at a time, to get the highest fidelity to the original
- The name of the paper is Old Mill from the Italian paper mill Fedrigoni in 190 gsm. The paper has archival quality and is, with its felt-like softness, much like hand-made paper
- Just like the original, this reprint is unbound and folded in signatures of 4 pages. It is protected by a French folded jacket and a hard-backed cover

The search for balance, purity and serenity. An indispensable survey about a lodestar of modern art

The extraordinary significance of the painter and sculptor Henri Matisse in the history of modern art, but also his influence, was no less decisive than that of his main rival, Pablo Picasso. In fact, Matisse's stylistic liberation actually goes one step further in the pursuit of his own personal goal — the perfect synthesis of line and color — by which he sought revolutionary approaches to the great tradition of French painting by drawing upon its classical aspects.

For those who wish to know more about this lodestar of modern art and follow the adventurous path of his creative career, this publication is surely the most comprehensive and informative source available. Lavishly illustrated, its authoritative commentaries trace the artist's search for balance, purity and serenity, from the chromatic brilliance of his Fauve period, through his travels, the Orient, geometric synthesis (it was he who introduced Picasso to African art by giving him his first mask), and the odalisques to the final triumph when, at the age of eighty, he invented his gouache cut-outs that culminated in his illustrations for Jazz and allowed him to achieve his goal of sculpting in paint just as a sculptor works in stone.

Matisse is widely acknowledged as an artist whose canvases are extremely difficult to reproduce in print. With this in mind, each work presented here has been painstakingly compared with the respective original, in close collaboration with the artist's grandson, Claude Duthuit. The bard of color deserves no less.

The author:

Xavier-Gilles Néret is a teacher of Philosophy in the region of Paris. Like his father Gilles Néret he is passionate about philosophy, as well as poetry and art. He has been working on the figures who unite these disciplines, notably Stéphane Mallarmé. He is also interested in less known figures such as the poet Claude Tarnaud or the artists Barnard Saby and Pascal Doury, on which he has published books and articles.

A splendid book on the motif of the female figure in the oeuvre of the great resuscitator of European painting, Henri Matisse.

Throughout his career few other subjects inspired Henri Matisse (1869-1954) with such passion as the female figure in indoor settings. Many of his interiors focus on women—reading, daydreaming, or sleeping, as passive figures, reclining on chaise-longues, often clothed in exotic fabrics.

This book offers an in-depth view of this important motif in which Matisse developed and continually explored his rich and imaginative repertoire of forms and colors. It features outstanding paintings from all periods of his career, supplemented by ensembles of his bronze sculptures, his intricate drawings, and his cut-outs and prints. Historical photographs by Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, Hélène Adant, and others show how leading art photographers saw Matisse's models and artfully designed studio interiors. An illustrated biography completes this exquisite presentation.

The extraordinary significance of the painter and sculptor Henri Matisse in the history of modern art, but also his influence, was no less decisive than that of his main rival, Pablo Picasso. In fact, Matisse's stylistic liberation actually goes one step further in the pursuit of his own personal goal — the perfect synthesis of line and color — by which he sought revolutionary approaches to the great tradition of French painting by drawing upon its classical aspects. For those who wish to know more about this lodestar of modern art and follow the adventurous path of his creative career, this publication is surely the most comprehensive and informative source available. Lavishly illustrated, its authoritative commentaries trace the artist's search for balance, purity and serenity, from the chromatic brilliance of his Fauve period, through his travels, the Orient, geometric synthesis (it was he who introduced Picasso to African art by giving him his first mask), and the odalisques to the final triumph when, at the age of eigthy, he invented his gouache cut-outs that culminated in his illustrations for Jazz and allowed him to achieve his goal of sculpting in paint just as a sculptor works in stone. Matisse is widely acknowledged as an artist whose canvases are extremely difficult to reproduce in print. With this in mind, each work presented here has been painstakingly compared with the respective original, in close collaboration with the artist's grandson, Claude Duthuit. The bard of color deserves no less.

Книга о французском художнике и рисовальщике Анри Матиссе (1869–1954). Судьба не предполагала, что Анри Матисс станет художником. Его талант проявился не сразу. Его творчество развивалось постепенно и вырастало из его беспримерной преданности цвету, свету, пространству и созданию гармонии. Изучив право, Матисс начал служить в нотариальной конторе. Одновременно он начал брать уроки рисунка и вскоре открыл свое призвание. В поисках собственного пути Матисс увлекался импрессионизмом, неоимпрессионизмом, но недолго – импрессионистская манера становится более плоскостной, а мазок – широким, ясным и сочным. На Осеннем Салоне 1905 года работы Матисса были выставлены рядом с картинами близких ему по манере художников - Вламинка, Марке и Дереном. Критик Луи Воксель назвал их «дикими», дав название движению фовистов. В 1909–1910 годах Матисс прибегнул к ритмической организации плоскостей в трехцветной гамме: зеленого, красного и синего, выполнив для русского коллекционера Сергея Щукина полотна «Танец» и «Музыка». Помимо живописи, Матисс занимался скульптурой, графикой, делал коллажи. Издание состоит из пяти глав, рассказывающих о жизни художника и об истории создания каждой картины, представленной в издании. В конце книги приводится хронология жизни и творчества мастера, проиллюстрированная документальными фотографиями.