In 1926, French publisher Christian Zervos founded Cahiers d’Art, a journal on contemporary art that soon gained wide recognition in Europe. Zervos devoted three issues of the magazine to the drawings of Henri Matisse in 1936. The works were then collected into a single volume published later that year.

This facsimile edition, faithful to the 1936 original, includes each of Matisse’s thirty-nine stunning drawings. The images, mostly of women—nudes, portraits, interior scenes—express an extraordinary sensuality. The book also features a preface by Christian Zervos and a poem by Tristan Tzara dedicated to Matisse, both translated by Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Richard Howard. 

October 2005
9 1/2 x 12 3/4., 88 pages
39 full-page facsimile reproductions As Olivier Cena wrote in Télèrama, “In these interiors, one perceives feminine delicacy; the languid beauties reappear, sleepily contemplating us superficially, while the painter, sometimes by means of a mirror, observes the scene with meticulous attention.” The beauty of Matisse’s simple drawings, as powerful today as in 1936, remains accessible to art lovers and a general audience alike.
Hardback - ISBN 0-8076-1565-X
$49.95 (Can. $70.00)