Large Decoration with Masks

1953

Henri Matisse

Artist, French, 1869 - 1954

Royal-blue, sunshine-yellow, kelly-green, deep pink, and orange petal-like shapes and other geometric forms are arranged in a grid-like pattern against a cream-white field in this abstract, horizontal artwork. Applied to five joined, vertical canvases, the design is anchored at the center by a vertical blue pillar encasing a vertical row of four flower-like forms. Flanking the central column to either side, flowers are arranged in four rows of five blooms. Each bloom is a single, flat color, created with four cut pieces of painted paper. The arrangement of the colors vary so the flowers do not create a rigid pattern, though it seems like a pattern at first glance. The flowers are separated by clove-like forms creating X-shapes at the corner of each bloom. A stylized face takes the place of one flower near the center of each panel. Each oval face, eyes, nose, and mouth are drawn with black lines. Column-like forms in royal blue encase the composition along the left and right edges, and a row flicks like inverted commas lines the top edge. The flicks over the left half are blue and the flicks over the right half are green. The artist signed and dated the work with blue paint at the bottom right: “HM 53 53.”
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During the last fifteen years of his life Matisse developed his final artistic triumph by "cutting into color." First, his studio assistants would brush opaque and semi-transparent watercolor pigments onto small sheets of white paper. The artist would then cut the sheets freehand in bold shapes that would be pinned to the white studio walls, adjusted, recut, combined and recombined with other elements. Later, the elements were glued flat to large white paper backgrounds for shipping or display.

Large Composition with Masks, the largest of Matisse's cutouts, was originally conceived as a full-scale preliminary study for a ceramic mural. It is architectural in scale, symmetrical in structure. Columns at either side enclose a composition of rosettes arranged in groups of four, that form a grid pattern across the nearly thirty-three-foot expanse.

If the design of Large Composition with Masks is relatively static, that is compensated by a lively distribution of color. Bright, vivid tones, profiled against the white ground, are dispersed across the surface. They keep the viewer's eye moving, engaged in a composition of paradoxically ordered calm and dynamic energy.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    gouache on paper, cut and pasted on white paper, mounted on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall (five joined panels): 353.6 x 996.4 cm (139 3/16 x 392 5/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1973.17.1

More About this Artwork

Video:  D.I.Y. Art: Fabric Stamps Inspired by Henri Matisse

Watch and learn how to make fashion stamps on fabric inspired by Henri Matisse’s 1953 work Large Decoration with Masks.

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Jean Gérard Matisse [1899-1976] and Contemporary Art Establishment; sold May 1973 through (Frank Perls, Beverly Hills) to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1959

  • Henri Matisse 1950-1954: Les grandes gouaches découpées, Kunsthalle Bern, 1959, no. 25, repro.

1960

  • Henri Matisse: Les grandes gouaches découpées, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1960, no. 28.

1961

  • The Last Works of Henri Matisse: Large Cut Gouaches, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Art, no. 28, repro.

  • Henri Matisse: Les grandes gouaches découpées, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Palais du Louvre, Paris, 1961, no. 33, repro.

1970

  • Henri Matisse: Exposition du Centenaire, Grand Palais, Paris, 1970, no. 228, repro.

1977

  • Henri Matisse: Paper Cut-Outs, National Gallery of Art, Washington; The Detroit Institute of Arts; The St. Louis Art Museum, 1977-1978, no. 203, repro.

1978

  • Aspects of Twentieth-Century Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978-1979, no. 89, repro.

1986

  • Loan for display with permanent collection, The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1986-1987.

2014

  • Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs, Tate, London; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2014-2015, no. 131, repro.

Bibliography

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 264, repro.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 268, repro.

1997

  • Matisse: La révélation m'est venue de l'Orient, Exh. cat., Musei capitolini, Rome, 1997: 248, repro.

1998

  • Gilbert, Rita. Living with Art. 5th ed. New York, 1998: fig. 151.

2004

  • Henri Matisse: Processus/Variation. Exh. cat. National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, 2004: 221, fig. 12.

Inscriptions

lower right: HM 53/53

Wikidata ID

Q20194642

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