![Henri Matisse - Jazz [1947]](http://c3.staticflickr.com/8/7076/26926738834_79e370c324_b.jpg)
The combination of bright colours and spontaneous subject matter evoke a joie de vivre that makes Jazz stand out as one of the most beautiful, ground-breaking and personal artist’s books of the 20th century. In the 1940s, while living in Vence, with his health ailing, Matisse was unable to paint or draw as freely as he once had. As a result he returned to the cut-out technique he had developed years earlier during the creation of his celebrated mural for the Barnes Foundation. ‘Drawing with scissors’, as Matisse called it, he used only a large pair of shears and gouache-painted paper to create maquettes for the seminal illustrated book Jazz in 1947. His publisher, Tériade, had been suggesting that Matisse do an album of cut-outs since 1940, following his two successful cut-out designs for covers of the review Verve. Although originally apprehensive about the project, by 1943 Matisse’s perception of his cut-outs had changed. No longer were they as seen a means to an end, but as a new medium unto themselves. This began a new chapter of Matisse’s artistic output that would define his later career.
[Sotheby’s, London - The complete portfolio, comprising 20 pochoirs printed in colours, after collages and cut out paper designs on Arches wove paper, each sheet 42 x 65 cm]