Article: Henri Matisse Prints: From the Cut-Outs to Jazz — A Buyer's Guide
Henri Matisse Prints: From the Cut-Outs to Jazz — A Buyer's Guide
This article is part of our Ultimate Fine Art Print Buyer's Guide.
Matisse is the artist people most often want on their wall and most often get wrong. Not because the art is difficult, but because there are three quite different Matisses, and each one does a different job in a room. The blue cut-out that looks perfect above a white sofa can look thin in a dark dining room; the rich Collioure landscape that warms a dining room can overwhelm a small hallway.
In brief: Choose the kind of Matisse before you choose the picture. The cut-outs — flat shapes of pure colour — are the most modern and the easiest to live with, and they are at their best in pairs and trios. The exhibition posters — Matisse images with the lettering of the original show — suit people who like a little text and a graphic edge. The paintings — the Fauve landscapes, windows and interiors — are the warmest, and need a wall with room to breathe.
Matisse, briefly
Henri Matisse (1869–1954) trained as a lawyer in northern France and only started painting while recovering from an illness in his twenties. In 1905, after a summer painting in the fishing port of Collioure, he showed pictures in such loud, unmixed colour that a critic called him and his friends les fauves, the wild beasts. The name stuck.
He spent the rest of his life simplifying. By the 1940s, after serious surgery left him unable to stand at an easel for long, he began cutting shapes straight out of paper that his assistants had painted with gouache, and pinning them to the wall. He called it drawing with scissors. Those late cut-outs — the blue nudes, the coral and seaweed shapes, the book Jazz — are now the most reproduced images of his whole career.
The three Matisses
1. The cut-outs: for pairs, trios and calm modern rooms
The cut-outs are flat shapes on a pale ground, and that is exactly why they work in modern homes. Blue Nude II is the best known: a seated figure in a single strong blue on a warm beige sheet. The Heart (Le Coeur) is the simplest — one deep-blue heart shape on cream, with the name of the Paris gallery, Berggruen et Cie, set quietly below. Papiers Découpés Black Flower is a black flower with a small yellow-orange centre, and Papiers Découpés in Yellow a branching shape in warm yellow.
Because each one is a single shape and a single colour, they are made for grouping. Two blues read as calm; a blue, a black and a yellow read as playful. Hang them at the same size, in the same frame, with even gaps, and they look like one designed wall rather than three separate purchases.
Room: living room, bedroom, a white or pale-wood kitchen. Frame: white or natural oak keeps them light; black makes them crisper and more graphic.
2. The exhibition posters: for people who want a little text
For his exhibitions, Matisse's images were turned into posters — many of them printed by Mourlot, the Paris lithography studio that also printed for Picasso and Chagall. They pair an image with the show's lettering, and that typography is a large part of their appeal.
Our Le Rêve Mourlot exhibition poster is the boldest: a woman asleep with her head on her arm, in a black-and-white patterned blouse, on a red and violet ground, with "Matisse" and the exhibition dates printed above and below. JAZZ is pure lettering — the word itself, brushed in black on a cream sheet — and Le Corail is a single branching coral shape in soft orange under a small title.
Posters suit rooms with a bit of edge: a kitchen, a home office, a hallway, a dining area in an open-plan flat. JAZZ in particular is a good answer for anyone who loves music or wants something graphic but not abstract.
Room: kitchen, study, hallway. Frame: black for the poster look; natural oak if the room is warm.
3. The paintings: for warm rooms and big walls
The paintings are where Matisse's colour is at full volume. Olive Trees at Collioure is the Fauve summer in one picture: twisting trees in blue, green and violet over pink and yellow ground. The Goldfish puts bright red fish in a glass bowl on a small round table, surrounded by green leaves and pink flowers. The Open Window is quieter — a window onto a pale sea and sky, a plant on the sill, all soft blues and pinks.
These pictures carry a lot of colour, so they need space around them and work best one at a time, at a generous size. A dining room is the natural home for the landscapes and The Goldfish; The Open Window is gentle enough for a bedroom.
Room: dining room, living room, a calm bedroom for the window. Frame: brown walnut or natural oak for the landscapes; white for The Open Window.
Sets: the easiest way to hang Matisse
If you would rather not choose three pictures yourself, our Matisse sets are already matched. The Matisse Statement Trio brings together an open window, a shaded terrace and a vase of flowers, each set as an exhibition-style print with Matisse's name below. The Statement Duo of Olive Trees and View of Collioure puts two Collioure landscapes side by side, in the same exhibition-poster layout — an easy pair for either side of a window or above a sideboard.
Size and framing
Matisse wanted his colour to be felt from across a room, and small prints undersell him. Above a sofa or a sideboard, aim for art that spans roughly 60 to 75 per cent of the furniture's width — either one large painting or a pair or trio of cut-outs. What Art Print Size Should I Buy for My Sofa, Bed, or Dining Room Wall? has the measurements.
Every print is made on Hahnemühle fine art paper with archival pigment inks, a matte surface that keeps Matisse's flat colour soft rather than shiny. Framed prints come in black, white, natural oak and brown walnut; if you are unsure whether to frame at all, Should I Buy Framed or Unframed Art Prints? sets out the trade-offs.
Where Matisse fits
Matisse sits among the world's most iconic art prints for a reason, but he also mixes well with quieter modernists. If you like the cut-outs, the colour grids in our Paul Klee buyer's guide are their closest relatives. If it is the Fauve colour you love, the wider Impressionism & Fauvism collection goes further; if it is the cheerfulness, try Joyful Art Prints or Bold Art Prints.
Summary: Cut-outs for modern rooms and for pairs and trios. Exhibition posters if you want lettering and a graphic edge. Paintings for warm rooms and big walls, one at a time. Then go a size larger than feels natural.
