New Nudes

Blue Nude IV, 1952; gouache on paper cut-out, 103 x 74cm While researching the collage story for my last issue of Outline magazine, Matisse’s blue nudes of the early 50s popped up in a Google search. I was reminded once more of their abstract yet voluptuous beauty; they are for me the epitome of his oeuvre in the collage medium.

In 1939, the artist Henri Matisse (1869–1954) began to visit with the Greek publisher of the magazine Verve, Emmanuel Tériade. It was in his editorial offices that Matisse began to experiment with paper cut-outs, utilising pages from catalogues of printer’s inks. Some of these pieces were used on the cover of the eighth issue of the magazine. Tériade was so enamoured of them he wanted to publish an entire book, but it was not until 1943 that Matisse agreed to the project.

The nudes are wholly excised from their environment, their limbs intertwined in space, conveying the appearance of sculptural monoliths in ‘Yves Klein blue’ …

The book would be called Jazz, inspired by the properties of jazz music: ‘the gift of improvisation, of life, of harmony with the listening audience’, Matisse explained, creating spontaneous images of folk tales, circus performances and travel. By 1944, 20 pictures were already finished. By this time Matisse had abandoned the books of printer’s inks, and was applying gouache to sheets which were then cut up. The publication of the book was stalled however due to the difficulties of reproduction, and it was not until 1947 that the master and the printer were duly satisfied.

Polynesia, The Sea, 1946; gouache on paper cut-out, 200 x 314cmIn 1946, Matisse took the visual solutions discovered during the process off creating the images in Jazz, and applied them to his Polynesia, the Sky, and Polynesia, The Sea (above). Squares of sea and sky overlapped with plants, fish and birds – truly harmonious and serene designs that were destined for tapestries to be woven at the Gobelin looms of Beauvais.

Blue Nude II, 1952; gouache on paper cut-out, 116.2 x 88.9cm His experiments with collage culminated in his blue nudes in the early 1950s, shortly before his death in November 1954. The nudes are wholly excised from their environment, their limbs intertwined in space, conveying the appearance of sculptural monoliths in ‘Yves Klein blue’ – hybrids existing somewhere between Moore’s and Modigliani’s sculptures. In fact, like a sculpture chipping away stone from the negative space, these cut-outs took Matisse weeks of trial and error before he determined satisfactory compositions, the results a great testament to a man’s dedication to his art.

Matisse and his model, Wilma Javor, a young Hungarian woman, in the studio in the rue des Plants, 1939; ph: BrassaïImages all from ‘Matisse’, by Volkmar Essers, Taschen 2002