The exhibition “Matisse, 1941–1954”, on show at the Grand Palais until 26 July, traces the master’s final years, from 1941 to 1954. Given up by his doctors in 1941, Matisse survived intestinal cancer for thirteen more years and called this period his “vita nova”, so strongly did he feel he had miraculously escaped death. Ill and mostly bedridden, he found in this physical constraint, combined with his quest for pictorial synthesis, the inspiration for his new and final medium: the paper cut-outs.

The master now drew with embroidery scissors directly into the pure colour of sheets painted with gouache, prepared in advance by his assistants. Alternating collages and easel paintings, including the celebrated series of Vence Interiors, the exhibition highlights the continuity of Matisse’s work on colour.

The cut-outs are the culmination of his oeuvre: the contour, once drawn, is now formed by the pure colour of the gouache-painted paper, the very first subject of this intrinsically decorative work.

The exhibition also presents the artist’s work as an illustrator, particularly important during the war years, when he refused to exhibit but found in printmaking an outlet from the censorship of the Occupation.

The exhibition design intelligently follows the chronology of these final years and succeeds in showing the evolution of the master’s visual research, in a body of work that remained constant in its central relationship to ornament and colour.

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