Henri Matisse and the Fauves

Henri Matisse, Beasts of the Sea, 1950, paper collage on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund 1973.18.1

In the last fifteen years of his life Matisse produced paper works by "cutting into color," as he said. These shapes, cut freehand and later glued onto a background, seem at once calm and dynamic.