Late in his life, confined to a chair or bed, Matisse transformed a simple technique into a medium for the creation of a major art. I have attained a form filtered to its essentials. Cutting dynamic shapes from painted paper, Matisse created his images. While producing pieces for Jazz, the artist used a large brush to write notes to himself on construction paper. The simple visual appearance of the words pleased Matisse, and he suggested using his reflective handwritten thoughts in juxtaposition with the images. The original edition of Jazz was an artist s book, printed in a limited quantity. This selection from the original is an exquisite suite of color plates and text that, like the music it was named for, was invented in a spirit of improvisation and spontaneity. These magnificent cut-outs of pure color celebrate the radiance and emotional intensity of the artist s oeuvre. "

In 1995, Welcome Books published the star of its "Art and Poetry" series, "Dance Me to the End of Love", a deliriously romantic song by Leonard Cohen visualized through the warm, spirited paintings and collages of Henri Matisse. Now, for its 10-year anniversary, Welcome presents a new edition of "Dance Me to the End of Love" featuring a revised design. Cohen's song is a lyrical tribute to the miracle of love, the grace it bestows on us, and its healing power. Originally recorded on his "Various Positions" album, and featured in Cohen's anthology, "Stranger Music", this poetic song is gloriously married to artwork by Henri Matisse, perhaps the greatest artist of the twentieth century. "I had this dance within me for a long time," Matisse once said in describing one of his murals. "Dance Me to the End of Love" is the perfect book for art lovers, song lovers, and all other lovers as well.

pIjHa' vuDchaj rIch meHghem chenmoHwI'pu' law' 'a HenrI' matIS'e', pImbej. DIjchu' 'ej qechDaj Delchu' je. vIraS DIjwI'vam noyqu' meqmey Dayajqu'meH ghItlhvam 'IH yIHaD 'ej mu'meyDaj 'ey tItIv.

The Museum Of Modern Art, November 13, 1951 To January 13, 1952; The Cleveland Museum Of Art, February 5 To March 16, 1952; The Art Institute Of Chicago, April 1 To May 4, 1952; The San Francisco Museum Of Art, May 22 To July 6, 1952.

The Museum Of Modern Art, November 13, 1951 To January 13, 1952; The Cleveland Museum Of Art, February 5 To March 16, 1952; The Art Institute Of Chicago, April 1 To May 4, 1952; The San Francisco Museum Of Art, May 22 To July 6, 1952.

Published in conjunction with the most comprehensive exhibition ever devoted to Henri Matisse's paper cut-outs, made from the early 1940s until the artist's death in 1954, this publication presents approximately 150 works in a groundbreaking reassessment of Matisse's colorful and innovative final chapter. The result of research conducted on two fronts--conservation and curatorial--the catalogue offers a reconsideration of the cut-outs by exploring a host of technical and conceptual issues: the artist's methods and materials and the role and function of the works in his practice; their economy of means and exploitation of decorative strategies; their environmental aspects; and their double lives, first as contingent and mutable in the studio and ultimately made permanent, a transformation accomplished via mounting and framing. Richly illustrated to present the cut-outs in all of their vibrancy and luminosity, the book includes an introduction and a conservation essay that consider the cut-outs from new theoretical and technical perspectives, and five thematic essays, each focusing on a different moment in the development of the cut-out practice, that provide a chronicle of this radical medium's unfolding, and period photographs that show the works in process in Matisse's studio.
One of modern art's towering figures, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was a painter, draftsman, sculptor and printmaker before turning to paper cut-outs in the 1940s. From the clashing hues of his Fauvist works made in the South of France in 1904-05, to the harmonies of his Nice interiors from the 1920s, to this brilliant final chapter, Matisse followed a career-long path that he described as "construction by means of color."