Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954) is regarded by many as one of the greatest figures in modern art.  He was born in Le Cateau, France and as a young man he went to Paris to study art.  

Like many avant-garde artists in Paris, Matisse was receptive to a broad range of influences, being one of the first painters to take an interest in ‘primitive’ art.  He abandoned the palette of the impressionists and established his characteristic style, with its flat, brilliant colour and fluid line. 

Matisse always emphasized the importance of an intuitive approach when creating a work of art.  He argued that an artist did not have complete control over the outcome and that the process of creation was an organic one in which the artist became almost carried along and the work took on a life of its own.  From the 1920s until his death he spent much time in the South of France, painting local scenes with a thin, fluid application of bright colour.  

In his final years he embarked upon what is now recognised as some of his most original work using brightly coloured cut-out paper shapes arranged casually, but with an unfailing eye for design, on a canvas surface. His final project was to reinterpret the cut-outs as original lithographs working with the famous French lithographers Mourlot Fréres.

A suite of 39 images was printed from the stone blocks at the Paris atelier. Matisse personally directed and supervised the first ‘pulls’ of the lithographs shortly before his death in 1954