DAYS OF COLOUR:
PAINTING AND FILM
AFTER 1939

Matisse’s gouache cut-outs first appeared in 1936, initially for magazine covers and then, with the creation of the book Jazz in 1943, evolving into a standalone technique. By cutting directly into colour, he came up with a new resolution to the age-old conflict between line and colour, achieving a form “stripped down to its essence”. Between 1946 and 1948, he produced Intérieurs de Vence [Vence Interiors], the last major series of paintings with which he sought to “give painting a fresh start”.

In America, Matisse’s reputation had been secure since the interwar years, but his work experienced a remarkable resurgence with the rise of new abstract painters in the 1940s. Among them, Barnett Newman also made the act of painting a confrontation with the physical reality of the artwork. In France, Raymond Hains and Jacques Villeglé’s film Pénélope set Matisse in motion, so to speak, seeking to move beyond painting in its traditional form. Although not directly influenced by Matisse, the compositions by self-taught Algerian artist Baya recall the decorative power and all-over arrangements of Matisse’s Nature morte au magnolia [Still Life with Magnolia].