Henri Matisse

1869-1954

In 1942, after two major surgeries, Matisse, now confined to a wheelchair, found out his ex-wife and daughter had been part of the French Résistance, and had been captured by the Nazis. Needless to say, it was cruel irony that he, being gravely ill, would survive his family.

Matisse, who is now under the care of Lydia Delektorskaya, his former model, and current companion. Matisse, being too incapacitated to paint, turned to other techniques he had been experimenting with, such as cut outs. He also drew while lying in bed, using sticks of charcoal stuck to the ends of long poles to draw on the walls. He wrote and Illustrated Jazz, which was published in 1947, and was persuaded by a nun who had been one of his previous models, to design the decor of the Sainte-Marie du Rosaire Chapel, in Vence.

Shortly after the completion of the Chapel, a major retrospective of his work is shown in museums across the United States, and in 1952, the Musée Matisse is inaugurated at at Cateau-Cambresis, where the artist was born.

Two years later, Henri Matisse dies in Nice, on November 3rd, 1954. He was 84.

"I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me."
Henri Matisse

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