Overview

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 decoupées (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 the first volume of our original prize-winning XL book 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 images, by Henri Cartier-Bresson and the filmmaker F.W. Murnau and text from Matisse, publisher E. Tériade, 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.

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9783836536271

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"“A beautiful monster of a book, and inside it there are very high quality reproductions and often tremendous foldouts… fantastic photographs, really incredible pictures.” * RTE1 Radio - Arena Show * ""A rare and outstanding symbiosis of book art and art book."" * Der Standard *"

A beautiful monster of a book, and inside it there are very high quality reproductions and often tremendous foldouts... fantastic photographs, really incredible pictures. -- RTE1 Radio - Arena Show A rare and outstanding symbiosis of book art and art book. -- Der Standard

Author Information

Gilles Néret (1933–2005) was an art historian, journalist, writer, and museum correspondent. He organized several art retrospectives in Japan and founded the SEIBU Museum and the Wildenstein Gallery in Tokyo. He directed art reviews such as L'Œil and Connaissance des Arts and received the Élie Faure Prize in 1981 for his publications. His TASCHEN titles include Salvador Dalí: The Paintings, Matisse, and Erotica Universalis. Xavier-Gilles Néret teaches philosophy of art and design at the École Duperré Paris and University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He studies the connections between art, philosophy, and poetry. His publications include works on Bernard Saby, Daisuke Ichiba, Pakito Bolino, Anne van der Linden and a theoretical essay on graphzines. He lives and works in Paris.

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