This is an epoch-making book, documenting the entire evolution of Matisse's art, written by the world's leading authority on the artist. The clear, authoritative and consistently exciting text is illuminated by over 900 magnificent illustrations, including scores of works never before reproduced.
Pierre Schneider was granted unrestricted access to the artist's archives. Because he began work when many of Matisse's friends and colleagues were still alive, he has amassed the largest single group of Matisse letters extant. Comprehensively annotated, with chronologies, lists of exhibitions, bibliography and index, This volume represents a brilliant summation of sixty years' achievement of a sovereign painter, draughtsman and sculptor. It has become the ultimate sourcebook for scholars and art lovers.
Pierre Schneider worked for ten years alongside the critic and art historian Georges Duthuit, Matisse's son-in-law, and was in close contact with artists of the younger generation including Jean-Paul Riopelle, Sam Francis and Bram van Velde. It was Samuel Beckett who recommended his first collection of essays, La Voix vive, to the publishers Editions de Minuit. The author of many books of aesthetics and art history, and a frequent contributor to British, American and German art periodicals, Pierre Schneider has acted as consultant and organizer for a number of major Matisse exhibitions, notably the centenary exhibition in Paris in 1970 and Washington in 1990.