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From 1942 to 1954, Sister Jacques-Marie, initially Monique Bourgeois, retraces her encounter with Henri Matisse, which led to the creation of the Rosary Chapel in Vence (Provence, France). The last and final project of the artist, it corresponds to the culmination of his work. About the chapel, Henri Matisse declared: «This work required four years of exclusive and assiduous work, and it is the result of my entire active life. Despite all its imperfections, I consider it as my masterpiece.” In her text, Sister Jacques-Marie recounts the friendship and complicity she shared with the painter over the years, from which emerged the masterpiece that is the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence. Reproductions of drawings by Matisse, unpublished archive photographs, accompanied by excerpts from the painter’s correspondence, as well as a preface by Zia Mirabdolbaghi, the director of the Château de Villeneuve, and Dominique Szymusiak, the former curator of the Matisse Museum in Cateau-Cambrésis, complete the text.

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9782363061188

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"Monique Bourgeois was a student nurse in Nice in 1942, when she learned that a painter named Matisse was looking for a nurse. She became his model and several drawings were made as well as four paintings: Monique, and The Idol (1942); The Green Dress and Oranges (1943) and Royal Tobacco (1943). In 1943, Matisse moved to the Villa ""Le Rêve"" in Vence while Monique Bourgeois was a boarder with the Dominican Sisters of Notre-Dame du Rosaire de Vence; she decided to join this congregation the following year, taking the name of Sister Jacques-Marie. The Dominican Sisters of Vence had only a dilapidated garage as a place of worship. In 1947, they decided to build a chapel. In August, Sister Jacques-Marie drew a project for a stained glass window representing the Assumption. She showed it to Matisse who encouraged her to have the drawing made into a stained glass window. At the end of 1947, the Dominican friar Rayssiguier visited the Sisters of Vence: he was the architect of their future chapel. He met with Matisse and together they worked out the essential elements of the chapel project. The next day, Matisse said to the sister: ""I will build your chapel and I will take care of the stained glass windows!"" He often took the advice of Sister Jacques-Marie, who remained for him the initiator of the chapel. At Matisse's request, she made a plywood model of the chapel according to the brother's plans. She often recounted her life, notably in an autobiography and in an American film by Barbara Freed. She died at the functional rehabilitation center Les Embruns in Bidart, which she had directed for thirty-seven years. She was buried on October 1, 2005 in Vence."

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