Homage To Henri Matisse - Special Issue Of XXe Siecle

Henri Matisse spent much of his career proving that the world could be reorganised with colour, line and an apparently effortless curve. Homage to Henri Matisse celebrates that achievement on the generous scale favoured by XXe Siècle, the celebrated French art review founded by Gualtieri di San Lazzaro. This is not a thin exhibition leaflet containing twelve small pictures and an essay about “visual dialogue”. It is a substantial special issue devoted to one of the defining artists of modern art.

Published by Tudor Publishing Company in 1970, this large-format volume brings together critical and personal assessments of Matisse alongside an extensive visual survey of his work. Contributors including Georges Rouault, Jean Cassou, Roger Fry and Jean Leymarie approach the artist from different directions, considering the development, character and influence of an art that could be both radically simplified and extraordinarily rich.

Across approximately 126 pages, the book contains 32 colour plates and around 150 black-and-white reproductions. Paintings, drawings, sculpture and paper cut-outs reveal the remarkable consistency of Matisse’s concerns even as his methods changed. Figures recline, interiors unfold, patterns compete for attention and colours behave with a freedom that would be considered insubordinate in almost any other workplace.

Also included is a full-page linocut made by Matisse for XXe Siècle in 1938. This gives the volume an additional collectable interest beyond its considerable value as an illustrated study. San Lazzaro’s art publications were known for treating original graphic work as an essential part of the experience rather than a luxury to be mentioned in the publicity and quietly omitted from the affordable edition.

Matisse famously pursued an art of balance, purity and serenity, although achieving apparent simplicity required a lifetime of ruthless judgement. His lines can look as though they arrived in a single relaxed movement, which is rather inconsiderate to everybody who has attempted to draw the same curve fifteen times and produced only a succession of increasingly worried bananas.

The later cut-outs demonstrate this deceptive economy especially well. When illness made conventional painting physically difficult, Matisse began working with painted paper and scissors, reducing figures, plants and movement to bold coloured shapes. The results look joyful and immediate, concealing the inconvenient fact that making something appear obvious is one of the hardest tasks in art.

The striking dust jacket uses a blue figure against an emphatic yellow ground, ensuring that the book does not enter a room discreetly. It is an excellent example of Matisse’s ability to make two flat colours perform more work than many painters manage with an entire landscape, several clouds and a carefully rendered horse.

This copy is in Good condition overall, although the dust jacket has suffered visible damage. There are tears to the jacket, including a tear at the back which appears capable of careful repair. The front has more substantial damage along the lower area, with tearing and a portion missing, as clearly shown in the scan. There is also general wear consistent with the age and size of a jacket that has spent more than fifty years protecting a large art book.

The missing section cannot be repaired in the strict sense because it is no longer present, unless the purchaser happens to possess a strangely specific piece of yellow-and-blue Matisse dust jacket. Nevertheless, most of the bold front design survives, the title remains clear and the jacket still performs an important decorative and historical role. It is wounded rather than defeated.

The book beneath remains a handsome and highly usable art volume. Its Good grading reflects the sound condition of the volume itself, while the jacket damage is described separately and openly. This is therefore better suited to a reader or collector who values the content, period presentation and included linocut over the immaculate corners demanded by those who inspect dust jackets with expressions of personal betrayal.

Ideal for admirers of Matisse, collectors of XXe Siècle publications, students of twentieth-century art or anyone seeking a lavish visual book whose exterior has itself acquired a little accidental découpage.

A Good 1970 special issue sold by Crappy Old Books—filled with colour, line, critical admiration and a dust jacket that has embraced Matisse’s principle of removing unnecessary paper with rather too much enthusiasm.

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