These photographs of Henri Matisse at home and at work at Villa Le Reve capture a warmth and familiarity that will enchant all lovers of his art.
Matisse spent five years at Villa Le Reve, near Vence in the South of France, seeking respite from the war and his failing health. Yet the art of this period is astonishingly bold: Matisse's famous Vence interiors, with their saturated colours, were painted here. He also made his most celebrated series of paper cutouts, Jazz, whose zip and vitality spring up undiminished by the fact that he was then almost eighty.
Shown together with sketches, handwritten notes and a selection of his work from the time, the photographs afford us an intimate glimpse into Matisse's world at Villa Le Reve. His surroundings, the interior shaded by the palms, laurels and olives outside, seem to welcome us as guests to the villa, to see the artist at work, to meet his models, his doves and cats.
For an instant we see what he saw — the strong Provencal light filtered by trees and plants; models coming to pose and take tea with him; work in progress arranged on the walls of the studio; and a unique array of objects from Matisse's studio that are familiar to us from his work — sea shells, a coffee pot, a pedestal table, Fez pottery, brightly patterned fabrics. And these photographs knowingly capture Matisse's particular fondness for chairs, too, which appear as characters in their own right.
Matisse's love of nature is evident here as nowhere else at the end of his life: not just in the wild profusion of untamed bunches of wildflowers we see arranged in a crowd of vases on a single table, but in the long, spiky leaves of trees and plants, whose patterns and shapes are transformed in his bold paper cutouts.
This book will fascinate all Matisse lovers, and charm all who are drawn to vivid scenes from the life and work of one of the twentieth century's most enduring artistic geniuses.