Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954) Henri Matisse Gravant

Literature

Alfred H. Barr, Matisse, His Art and His Public, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1951, p. 312 (another example illustrated).

William S. Lieberman, Matisse: Fifty Years of His Graphic Art, New York: George Braziller, 1956, frontispiece and pp. 21, 23 (another example illustrated).

Henri Matisse, Gravures et Lithographies, exh. cat., Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Fribourg, Berne Galerie Kornfeld, 1982, cat. no. 1 (another example illustrated).

Note

Henri Matisse Gravant is the artist’s first known etching, and one of his earliest self-portraits, a stirring example of the artist’s intense skills of observation. A touchstone for his future printmaking oeuvre, the self-portrait shows the artist studying himself in the mirror, while drawing with his etching needle onto a copper plate. He leans slightly forward to get a good long look, working fastidiously on the face, jacket and surrounding shading, while leaving the hands less defined, with the white of the paper showing, as if light emanates from his working hands. The sketches at top left call to mind Rembrandt's or Cézanne’s drawings, remnants of other ideas and imagery left in the margins. Henri Matisse Gravant serves as a glimpse of the artist in his element, before the color and force of his Fauvist paintings, a quiet moment of reflection that the viewer is given the privilege of witnessing. A rare example of the artist’s early printmaking, other impressions in the edition of thirty are found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Provenance

"Old Master, Modern and Contemporary Prints," Sotheby's, London, December 6, 2000, lot 152.

Private Collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (acquired directly from the above sale).