Henri Matisse

Galerie Rosengart, Lucerne (acquired from the artist)
Acquired from the above

Between 1946 and 1948, Matisse concentrated on a series of large-scale ink-and-brush drawings that are closely related to paintings of the same date. The present work is one of a number of drawings related to Le silence habité des maisons, 1947, painted at the villa Le Rêve in Vence. While continuing to investigate color in his cutouts, Matisse reached a new level of intensity in his investigation of black and white in this series of drawings. Matisse himself spoke of “the special quality of brush drawing, which, though a restricted medium, has all the qualities of a painting or a painted mural. It is always colour that is put into play, even when the drawing consists of merely one continuous stroke. Black brush drawings contain, in small, the same elements as coloured paintings …. that is to say, differentiations in the quality of the surfaces unified by light” (Henri Matisse: Oeuvres recentes, 1947-48, Paris, 1949, p. 21)