Lot 29 : Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

Henri Matisse - 1869-1954

Auction Location: United States of America - 2004
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Artist or Maker:

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

Title:

Jeune fille aux anémones sur fond violet [Jeune fille blonde sur fond violet]

Description:

Jeune fille aux anémones sur fond violet [Jeune fille blonde sur fond violet]
signed and dated 'H. Matisse 44' (lower left) and inscribed 'fleurs fond violet' (on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
24 1/4 x 19 7/8 in. (61.5 x 50.5 cm.)
Painted in Vence, 13-19 March 1944

Provenance:

Galerie Maeght, Paris (1946).
Jacques Lindon, New York.
Acquired from the above by the father of the present owner, late 1940s.

Published:

A. Lejard, Matisse 16 peintures 1939-1946, Paris, 1946, pl. 16 (illustrated in color).
J. Cassou, Matisse, Paris, 1947, p. 24.
G. Diehl, Henri Matisse, Paris, 1954, p. 156.
A. Nelck, Matisse à Vence, l'Olivier du Rêve, 1998, p. 28.
X. Girard, Henri Matisse: Les chefs-d'oeuvre du Musée Matisse, Nice, Cimiez, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux Arts, Dijon, 1991, p. 86 (illustrated).
L. Delectorskaya, Henri Matisse, Contre vents et marées: Peintures et livres illustrés de 1939 à 1943, Paris, 1996, p. 230, no. 21 (illustrated in color, p. 231).

Notes:

Property of a French Private Collector

Wanda de Guébriant has confirmed the authenticity of this painting.

Jeune fille aux anémones sur fond violet is part of the last major series of oil paintings that the aging Matisse made. An operation for abdominal cancer in 1941 had left the artist seriously weakened and frequently bedridden, and he increasingly turned to projects less physically demanding than oil painting, including drawings, book illustrations, and cut-outs. Despite his ill health, however, the final decade of Matisse's career was one of great productivity. As he wrote to the painter Albert Marquet in 1942, "My terrible operation has completely rejuvenated and made a philosopher of me. I had so completely prepared for my exit from life, that it seems to me that I am in a second life" (quoted in J. Cowart et al., Henri Matisse: Paper Cut-Outs, exh. cat., St. Louis Art Museum, 1977, p. 43). Likewise, he commented to his friend Jedlicka, "What I did before this illness, before this operation, always has the feeling of too much effort; before this, I always lived with my belt tightened. What I created afterwards represents me myself: free and detached" (quoted in ibid., p. 43).

Among the most important works from this late period is a series of brightly colored and freely brushed interiors that Matisse made in his studio at Vence, where he lived from 1943 until 1949 (fig. 1). With their bold and undulating contours, flat planes of vivid pigment, compressed and ethereal space, and elaborate decorative patterning, the Vence interiors represent a virtuoso summation of Matisse's artistic achievement to date--to quote Alfred Barr, "a demonstration of complete synthesis after fifty years of study and ceaseless research in which academic, impressionist, quasi-primitive, arbitrarily abstract and comparatively realistic styles were all put to the test" (A.H. Barr, Jr., Matisse: His Art and His Public, New York, 1951, p. 237). Describing this group of pictures, Lawrence Gowing proclaims, "When Matisse painted his last great series of interiors he was ready not only to sum up all his work, but to add to it something of dazzling originality" (in Matisse, 1869-1954, exh. cat, Hayward Gallery, London, 1968, p. 41), while John Elderfield writes:

"Eventually, cutouts and brush drawing formed virtually Matisse's only means of expression. But before this happened, his painting came to a dazzlingly original conclusion. He made his final studies of that perennial subject, the decoratively costumed female figure, now more flatly and brightly painted than ever before. The Vence interiors are so flooded with intense color that it seems at times to overflow the limits of the canvas. Matisse shows us at once a mysterious interior space of colors and patterns, with which the specific identities of things are nevertheless retained, and an elemental chromatic plane, real and substantial, that radiates light into the space around it. His last style, like the last style of other great artists, amounts to a coincidence of opposites. The calmness of the interior space and the energy that is released into our own space are inseparable and interfused" (J. Elderfield, Henri Matisse, A Retrospective, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1992, p. 413).

Matisse moved to Vence in late June of 1943 to avoid the expected bombardment of Nice, where he had lived throughout the first part of the war. Accompanied by his secretary, Lydia Delectorskaya, and by a team of nurses, he rented a villa called Le Rêve on the outskirts of Vence, close to his friend André Rouveyre's house. Notable for its elegant English colonial architecture, floor-to-ceiling windows, and spacious terraces, Le Rêve would remain Matisse's primary residence until early 1949, when he returned to the Hôtel Régina in Cimiez. The artist was pleased by the mid-mountain climate at Vence, which seemed to help his health. As he wrote to Marquet in November of 1944, "I told you that I spent part of the war at the Régina in Cimiez and that I moved to Vence to avoid the bombing. I have been here for a year and a half now. The climate suits me and I have been flourishing in it. Liberation came without too much harm done. Although due to some poor marksmanship, three shells exploded in my garden at midnight, some twenty meters away from my window, they only damaged the branches of some trees" (quoted in P. Schneider, Matisse, Paris, 1984, p. 739). In addition to the magnificent Vence interiors, Matisse executed his first cut-outs (gouaches découpées) during his stay at Le Rêve. In his final year there, he also began work on one of the most significant projects of his mature period: the stained-glass windows and priests' vestments for the Chapel of the Rosary of the Dominicans in the center of town.

The model for the present painting was a young Dutch artist named Annelies Nelck (fig. 2), who joined her parents in Vence in 1943 after spending two years at the Fine Art University of Amsterdam under the German occupation. Barely twenty, she had never heard of Matisse, but her father encouraged her to visit him and seek his advice in selling her work. Years later, Annelies would recall the icy reception that she received from Lydia Delectorskaya at the doorstep of Matisse's villa. After much insistence, however, she finally gained entry to meet the famous painter, who recommended that she show her portfolio to a Monsieur Roux, the owner of a restaurant in Vence called La Colombe d'Or. She did so later that afternoon and sold all of her drawings on the spot. When she returned to Le Rêve the next day, she was ushered into Matisse's studio, and the artist, impressed by her determination, offered to hire her as a model.

Annelies posed for Matisse at Vence over a period of several weeks in early 1944. In order to familiarize himself with his new sitter, Matisse first made a series of charcoal drawings, of which several dozen have survived. Annelies remembered that the painter frequently interrupted these early modeling sessions to give her artistic advice, which she greatly cherished. Finally, Matisse was ready to paint the young blonde. He posed her in a plush armchair behind a table, flanked by large bouquets of tulips and anemones. She was clad in an ornately embroidered Romanian blouse from Matisse's collection of costumes, the beauty of which he extolled in a letter to the Romanian painter Pallady. As Annelies later recalled, "I was asked to wear a Romanian blouse, the same one worn by so many models before me, and around my neck a necklace of golden ivy leaves. I felt like a chèvre endimanchée, but my curiosity soon made me forget this initial awkwardness" (A. Nelck, op. cit., p. 29). Matisse made three paintings of Annelies in this setting. The first, executed in early March and now housed in the Honolulu Fine Arts Museum, shows the model gazing alertly at the viewer, a large book open on the table before her (fig. 3). The present canvas, painted between March 13th and 21st, is the next in the series. Here the book has been eliminated and Annelies sits with her hands clasped, her head slightly inclined and her expression one of dreamy languor. The table and the background are both painted a warm, vibrant purple, which -- according to Annelies's recollections -- Matisse carefully applied over a previously dried layer of pigment to achieve the desired final effect. The third painting in the series was executed in April of 1944 and again shows Annelies reading (see fig. 1, bottom row, second from left). Only a single vase of flowers remains in this version of the composition, although a photograph of the painting in progress indicates that it originally included two bouquets (illustrated in X. Girard, op. cit., p. 89). This third painting of Annelies remained in Matisse's personal collection until his death and now hangs in the Musée Matisse in Nice.

(fig. 1) Matisse in his studio at the villa Le Rêve, Vence, circa 1945. Annelies Nelck posed for the painting on the bottom row, second from the left (Liseuse à la table jaune, 1944; Musée Matisse, Nice).

(fig. 2) Annelies Nelck and Coussi, at the 'Régina,' Nice, 1953.
© Archives A. Nelck, France

(fig. 3) Henri Matisse, Annelies, tulips blanches et anemones, 1944. Honolulu Fine Arts Museum.
©c 2004 Succession H. Matisse, Paris Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York