About Matisse Cut-Outs
In the 1940s Henri Matisse, mostly confined to bed and wheelchair, swapped the brush for scissors. Lydia Delectorskaya painted sheets in Linel gouache; he cut them freehand and had them pinned to the wall. Tériade published twenty of those maquettes as Jazz in 1947, stencilled in the same paints on ivory wove paper.
This system works from that book: one dominant blue, a handful of saturated flat fields, shapes with scissor wobble, generous bare paper, and handwritten text pages in black.
- Origin
- Nice, Vence and Paris, France
- Era
- 1943–1954; Jazz published by Tériade 1947; Blue Nude series 1952
- Key figures
- Henri Matisse · Lydia Delectorskaya · Tériade (Efstratios Eleftheriades) · Edmond Vairel
- Movements
- Late Modernism · Papiers découpés (cut-paper) · Livre d'artiste and pochoir stencil printing
Matisse Cut-Outs design spec
Colors
Background
Surface
Primary
Secondary
Accent
Text
Typography
Playfair DisplayHeadings
JostBody
ui-monospaceMono
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