Provenance

David Thompson

American

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Shapes cut from pieces of painted paper suggest a person and flowers on this abstracted, horizontal composition. Slivers, curving segments, and circles made with black paper make up the silhouetted body of a person to the right. A shape with four long fingers extending downward suggests a marigold-yellow skirt around the person’s hips. Four-petaled flowers in shades of aquamarine blue, butter yellow, shamrock green, red, fuchsia, and orange float around the person, mostly to the left. A few pairs of black slivers suggest flying birds. The canvas background is streaked with ivory white and pale peach.
Henri Matisse, La Négresse, 1952, paper collage on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1973.6.1

La Négresse

Henri Matisse · 1952 · paper collage on canvas ·  Accession ID  1973.6.1