Henri Matisse, The Swimming Pool. Late summer 1952Gouache on paper, cut and pasted, on painted paper
Henri Matisse, The Swimming Pool. Late summer 1952Gouache on paper, cut and pasted, on painted paper, overall 73 x 647" (185.4 x 1653.3 cm). Installed as nine panels in two parts on burlap-covered walls 136" (345.4 cm) high. Frieze installed at a height of 65" (165 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mrs Bernard F. Gimbel Fund, 1975.One morning in the summer of 1952, Matisse told his studio assistant and secretary Lydia Delectorskaya that “he wanted to see divers,” so they set out to a favorite pool in Cannes. Suffering under the “blazing sun,” they returned home, where Matisse declared, “I will make myself my own pool.” He asked Delectorskaya to ring the walls of his dining room at the Hôtel Régina in Nice with a band of white paper, positioned just above the level of his head, breaking only at the windows and door at opposite ends of the room. The room itself was lined with tan burlap, a popular wall covering of the time. Matisse then cut his own divers, swimmers, and sea creatures out of paper painted in an ultramarine blue. The blue forms were pinned on the white paper, which helped define the aquatic ballet of bodies, splashing water, and light.more -- source link
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