MATISSE: The Essence of Line, Selected Prints: 1900-1950 by Marlborough Gallery

M AT I S S E THE ESSENCE OF LINE Selected Prints: 1900-1950

with essays by M a r i ly n Mc C u l ly foreword by

notes on paper by

Ta r a K . R e d d i

S a r a h b e rta l a n

and chronology by M a r i ly n Mc C u l ly & M i c h a e l R a e b u r n

N e w Yo r k : S e p t e m b e r 1 2 - O c t o b e r 1 2 , 2 0 1 3 l o n d o n : D e c e m b e r 4 , 2 0 1 3 - Ja n ua ry 1 1 , 2 0 1 4 M a d r i d : F EB rua ry - M a rc h 2 0 1 4

M a r l b o ro u g h G a l l e ry

40 West 57th Street New York, NY 10019 +1 212 541 4900 marlboroughgallery.com

M a r l b o ro u g h F i n e A rt

6 Albemarle Street London W1S 4BY +44 (0) 20 7629 5161 marlboroughfineart.com

GALERIA M a r l b o ro u g h

Orfila, 5 28010 Madrid +34 91 319 1414 galeriamarlborough.com

1. Henri Matisse gravant, 1900-03, etching and drypoint

M at i ss e a n d P r i n t m a k i n g

Matisse: The Essence of Line, Selected Prints: 1900-1950 explores a half-century of printmaking by Henri Matisse. During his lifetime he produced over 800 prints in addition to illustrating a number of exquisitely designed livres d’artistes. Although Matisse’s production of prints was prodigious, it differed from that of Pablo Picasso, as William Lieberman observed in 1956 in his pioneering essay on Matisse as a printmaker: “Matisse never sustained a continuous level of interest in printmaking.” Instead, “it was concentrated into relatively short periods throughout his career.” 1 These highly productive periods in Matisse’s graphic oeuvre are examined in-depth in this exhibition and follow the artist in his print-making endeavors, starting from what is probably his earliest print, Henri Matisse gravant (1900-03, no. 1). Here the pose and composition are reminiscent, as Jay Fisher has pointed out, 2 of Rembrandt’s self-portrait etching, Rembrandt Drawing at a Window (1648). The process of Matisse’s printmaking, whether he was drawing directly on a plate or on lithographic stone or transfer paper, in some ways parallels the immediate and close relationship that existed between the artist and his models, who might include friends and family. This is reflected especially in the first group of drypoints and etchings (1914-1935), in which the delicacy of line and open space emphasizes the mood or the characterization of his models in interior settings. These works are followed by a large selection of lithographs (1906-1929), featuring nudes, portraits and odalisques, among which are some of Matisse’s most remarkable works in the graphic medium. The later works in the show – including lino-cuts and aquatints, and works inspired by dance and poetry – correspond to new and different artistic undertakings. Even when his health was failing and he was confined to bed, Matisse nonetheless continued to experiment in printmaking, and the vigor of his powers of invention in his last decade is demonstrated by a series of radical aquatints and the cut-out designs for Jazz that were published as pochoirs by Tériade (1947, no. 79). Included in this exhibition of more than eighty prints and livres d’artistes, are rare and important impressions in very fine condition, acquired in part from the Matisse family collections, including the estate of the artist’s grandson, Pierre-Noël Matisse. There are also a number of prints that were acquired from the Petiet Estate. Henri Petiet, the connoisseur dealer, bought hundreds of prints directly from Matisse, with whom he corresponded from 1927 until the time of the artist’s death. There are also a number of bon à tirer or “right to print” impressions, on which the artist indicated his final approval to print an edition; these were acquired by Petiet directly from the artist’s printers.

Matisse: The Essence of Line is one of the first major surveys to take place in New York in many years. Both the exhibition and the catalogue have been greatly enhanced by two notable lenders to the New York venue. First, I would like to extend our gratitude to Christophe Cherix, Chief Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for agreeing to lend the early and rare self-portrait of the artist working on a copper plate, Henri Matisse gravant (1900-03, no. 1). I am also grateful for the assistance of Judy Hecker, Assistant Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, Katherine D. Alcauskas, Collection Specialist, Department of Drawings & Prints, Sydney Briggs, Associate Registrar, and Hope Cullinan, Senior Registrar Assistant at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). I am also deeply indebted to Nelson Blitz, Jr. and Catherine Woodard for lending two masterworks of printmaking, the woodcut Le Grand Bois (1906, no. 2) and the lithograph Grande odalisque à la culotte bayadère (1925, no. 49). This exhibition would not have been complete without these pivotal works. This exhibition has been enriched by the collaboration with Marc Rosen and Susan Pinsky of Marc Rosen Fine Art Ltd., whose long association with the heirs of Henri M. Petiet has made it possible to acquire rare and important prints. Also special thanks to Anne-Françoise Gavanon of Frederick Mulder Limited, London, and Peter Kraus and William Wyer of Ursus Books, New York, who have loaned important works to the exhibition. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Andrea Fisher-Scherer, at Artist’s Rights Society (ARS), who acted as liaison with the Archives Matisse to coordinate all the necessary approvals and permissions. I would also like to extend our thanks to Georges Matisse and Wanda de Guébriant at the Archives Matisse. I would like to thank Marilyn McCully for her essay and sharing her expertise and insights about Matisse and printmaking. McCully and Michael Raeburn after viewing the assembled collection of Matisse prints here in New York gave us the beautiful title, “The Essence of Line” for this catalogue and exhibition. They also jointly contributed to the organization and design of the catalogue, selected the documentary black-and-white photographs of Matisse as well as the quotations. In addition, they collaborated on the informative chronology that accompanies this catalogue. We extend our gratitude to them both for their excellent contributions and collaboration. I also wish to thank Sarah Bertalan, paper conservator, who contributed the informative essay on paper, and explored Matisse’s use of paper in printmaking.

This ambitious project would not have come to fruition without the support and great interest of Pierre Levai, President of Marlborough Gallery, New York. I would also like to thank the entire staff of Marlborough Gallery in New York and recognize the assistance of my colleagues: Kim Schmidt, Emily Klasson, and Andrew McElwee of Marlborough Graphics who carefully coordinated cataloguing, framing, photography, and rights and reproduction, as well as our archivists, Daniel McCann, Annie Rochfort, and Laura Stewart. Maeve O’Regan, our Creative Director, designed this beautiful catalogue, which is a tribute to the artist’s work. Kevin Uhl of Project printed the catalogue here in New York. At Marlborough Fine Art in London, which will be the second venue for this exhibition, I would like to thank Frankie Rossi and Kate Chipperfield, of Marlborough Graphics, London, for their assistance with various aspects of the exhibition and catalogue. I would also like to acknowledge Nuria Misert and her colleagues at Galería Marlborough in Madrid who will be organizing the third venue of this exhibition. I would hope that this exhibition and catalogue will provide not only a more intimate view of Matisse’s printmaking process but also offer a better understanding of Matisse as a printmaker. As Lieberman aptly concludes in his 1956 essay, “his accomplishment in black and white, limited though it may be to specific moments during a half century, is a brilliant example of the tradition of peintre graveur.”3

Ta r a K . R e d d i Vice-President M a r l b o ro u g h G a l l e ry

notes

1. William S. Lieberman, Matisse: 50 Years of His Graphic Art, 1956, p. 7. 2. Jay M. Fisher, Matisse as a Printmaker, 2009, pp. 36-37. 3. William S. Lieberman, Matisse: 50 Years of His Graphic Art, 1956, p. 18.

2. Le Grand Bois, 1906, woodcut

M ATI S S E : THE E S S EN C E O F LINE M a r i ly n Mc C u l ly

Matisse’s old friend and artistic rival Picasso once observed that in his approach to drawing Matisse always aimed to clarify line, in the belief that the best line was “the most stripped down … the purest, the definitive one.” Printmaking afforded Matisse the opportunity not only to focus on line (as opposed to color in painting) but also to render it with the purity that the artist so much desired. Comparisons can indeed be made between the quality of line in Matisse’s prints and in his pencil, ink or charcoal drawings, but when working on a metal plate, the action required from the artist is limited to one determined effort, without the normal allowance in drawings for erasures, overlays or shadows to evoke volume and space. The essence of line in a print, if achieved in the way Matisse wanted, could thus provide all the information that is needed: the presence and character of a model, the definition of spatial relationships within a composition, including both interior and exterior views, and details of a particular setting. The first print in the Marlborough exhibition is a self-portrait that appears to show the artist at work on the resulting image. Apart from the intensity of Matisse’s gaze, the most impressive quality in this drypoint with etching – which may be his earliest print – is the way in which his command of line, with the contrasts of heavily worked areas and almost empty spaces on the plate, focuses on the act of engraving. This is followed by one woodcut (1906) and a number of etchings and drypoints that were done during the period beginning around the time of World War I and continuing throughout the 1920s. The subject matter, which features portraits and drawings made from the model, is, as ever, closely tied to Matisse’s work in other media of the same period. Nonetheless, in these compositions the subject is expressed with an extraordinary economy of graphic means. In many cases, the positioning of the printed image on the sheet of paper also implies a different sense of space than would normally be created in a drawing or, for that matter, a framed painting. At this time, Matisse usually preferred to have his images occupy the center of the sheet, with an abundance of untouched margins surrounding them. In this way, the space itself can imply the extension of a particular scene or figure. For example, the head in Loulou Masque - chapeau fleuri (1914-15, no. 4) appears to be cropped at the edges, but the space at either side allows for us to imagine the rest of the hat and head. In other cases, such as Nu au fauteuil, main gauche derrière le dos (1926, no. 8), the placement of the relatively small image within broad borders provides an added sense of monumentality.

t h e e ss e n c e o f l i n e

Within a particular composition, the relationship of the model to her surroundings is inventively articulated in Matisse’s prints through the use of subtly different linear techniques. In the etching Le repos sur le lit (1929, no. 9), for instance, the woman, who is stretched out on a divan, gazes outwards in order to engage us as spectators in this scene. Yet the details of the interior are as important as the figure, and, thus, all aspects of the composition command almost equal attention: the dots of the model’s dress continue into the pattern of the bedspread, the curly-haired little dog on her lap merges with the lines around it, while the squared-up wall tiles behind her are matched by the equally flat, almost regular pattern of the hexagonal floor tiles below. Finally, the strong vertical linearity of the upright end of the divan provides compositional stability, as does the oversized hand and forearm in the center. The position of the boldly rendered model in Nu couché, renversé (1929, no. 15) is emphasized by the spareness of details, which apart from defining the body of the nude, are confined to the criss-crossed screen at the back. Here the etched line does everything – from conveying the curves of the model’s body, hair (including underarm hair) and facial features to the space that she occupies. Although there is no tile pattern below to situate the figure, the carefully modulated line itself indicates that the woman’s head clearly rests on the floor in the foreground, while the screen at the back defines the limits of the enclosed interior that she inhabits. Another etching, Tête penchée et bocal de poissons (1929, no. 17), is equally striking. In this case, line conveys the weight of the woman’s head resting on her forearms (which, in turn, rest on an implied surface) as well as the contour of the bowl at the right, in which we see the goldfish swimming in empty space, which for us “reads” as water. In addition to etchings and drypoints, Matisse experimented early in his career with the quite different expressive possibilities of lithography. The use of lithographic crayons produces results similar to those in drawings, although the line itself sometimes, as in Nu accroupi, profil à la chevelure noire (1906, no. 30), conveys the uneven quality of the lithographic stone from which it was printed. Again, the placement of the image on the sheet of paper assumes a key role in establishing compositional space. In this work, the nude occupies the whole of the sheet, and she is depicted as if seated and seen from above, although no additional details (chair, floor, etc.) are provided. In the 1920s Matisse produced some of his most spectacular lithographs, in which the varied effects that can be achieved by using a lithographic crayon are richly explored. He generally preferred to work on transfer paper, rather than directly on the stone, and the results are thus quite close to his drawings. Most of the subjects of the lithographs continue his preoccupation with the figure, focusing on portraits and models, some of whom are portrayed as exotic odalisques or dancers. Nu au fauteuil sur fond moucharabieh (1925, no. 53), which shows a seated figure in a richly patterned interior, for example, presents a mix of linear markings, rubbing and overlays, while giving much information about the textures and the setting. The shorthand notations at the upper left distinguish the wallpaper from the foliage seen through the window, and the shadows that accentuate the round curves of the nude and also the armchair on which she is seated provide an additional range of lithographic effects. By contrast, the deep, darkened tones that Matisse created for Odalisque à la coupe de fruits (1925, no. 51) not only define the different qualities of the wallpaper, floor, rug, and the model’s costume, but they contribute to the sensuous but moody characterization of the figure.

OPPOSITE: Matisse

drawing a model at no. 1, place Charles-Félix, Nice, 1927-28

t h e e ss e n c e o f l i n e

In late 1925 Matisse began work on a series of lithographs that would be published in folio form as Dix danseuses (nos. 72-74) by the Galerie d’Art Contemporain two years later. In some respects this undertaking on the part of the gallery represented a revival of the publication by dealers in the late-nineteenth century of artists’ albums, which were aimed at collectors of modern art. In the case of the Matisse lithographs, each of the ten sheets is devoted to a single dancer, but rather than showing the young women in rehearsal or performance, he depicted the dancers in much the same way as his regular models – posing for the artist in different attitudes, just as in Degas’s sculptures. In Danseuse reflétée dans la glace (1927, no. 71), for example, a standing dancer is shown in front of a mirror, and the lithographic techniques used here not only create strong contrasts of light and dark in both the figure and her reflection, but also animate the surroundings. The darkened mirror echoes the door at the left, providing additional illumination on the figure, while the angles of the floor in the foreground (at least in the way it is rendered) emphasize the position of the dancer and her reflection above. Another important commission (1930) were the illustrations that Matisse did for a luxury edition of Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé (no. 81), which would be published by the Swiss Albert Skira in 1932. After his reading of the poetry, Matisse responded by creating full-page etchings that he believed provided a pictorial equivalent (in terms of design) to the words on the page: “The problem was to balance each pair of facing pages – the one with the etching white, the other with the typography relatively black. I achieved this by modifying my arabesques in such a way that the spectator’s attention would be interested as much by the entire page as by the promise of reading the text.” The Mallarmé etchings, which combine the essence of line – what the artist described as an arabesque – with the full space of each page, represent a departure point for Matisse’s illustrated books in years to come. In his later years, as his physical powers declined and he was forced to devise a number of means, including his celebrated cut-outs, with which he could continue producing art, Matisse embarked on new print-making techniques, including white on black lino-cuts and black on white or colored aquatints. While simple in process, they offered him the possibility of creating strong compositions in which contour lines – either cut into the linoleum or aquatint brushed on plates – could convey the essence of forms. In this way, the aquatints, in particular, relate to the designs that Matisse created in glass for the Dominican chapel in Vence (1948-1951). The heads and figures in the late prints are especially moving in their simplicity and stand as evidence of Matisse’s continued search for a purity of line and expression in his art.

notes

1. Picasso in conversation with the photographer Brassaï, early October 1943; in Brassaï, Picasso & Co., 1966, p. 56. 2. See, for example, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec’s Elles (published by Gustave Pellet in 1896) and the Albums des peintres-graveurs (1896, 1897) and albums devoted to individual artists, including Pierre Bonnard (1895-99), Maurice Denis (1898) and Edouard Vuillard (1899), that were published by the dealer Ambroise Vollard. 3. Although Skira commissioned Matisse in 1930, work did not begin on the Mallarmé etchings for at least a year. The idea to produce the book parallels Skira’s commissioning of an illustrated edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses with engravings by Picasso, published in October 1931. 4. Quoted in William S. Lieberman, Matisse: 50 Years of His Graphic Art, 1956, p. 12.

BrassaĂŻ, Matisse drawing the model Wilma Javor at the Villa AlĂŠsia studio, Paris, 1939

Pa rt I : D ry p o i n t s a n d e t c h i n g s (1914-1935)

One must always search for the desire of the line, where it wishes to enter or where to die away. Also, always be sure of its source; this must be done from the model.

M at i ss e , ac c o r d i n g t o S a r a h S t e i n , 1 9 0 8