Matisse's Jazz Unbound

In the final decades of a prolific career, modern artist Henri Matisse (1869–1954) took up book illustration. This exhibition celebrates our 2024 acquisition of Jazz, Matisse’s 1947 artist book on the circus and theater. Jazz includes 20 color stencil prints (pochoirs) of popular subjects on these themes, from horses to ringmasters. The prints were created using the artist’s lively paper cutouts, what Matisse called “drawing with scissors.” Published by the innovative Greek publisher Tériade (Stratis Eleftheriadis), it is considered the pinnacle of Matisse’s graphic art. This presentation offers the rare chance to see the unbound works from Jazz in conversation with other Matisse artist books from our collection.