Image: Hidden, Bristol
Hidden Gallery has brought together a focused group of works by Henri Matisse that traces the artist’s late invention across drawing, lithography and cut-out-derived imagery. The selection includes the original drawing 'Paule Caen-Martin (Yellow)', circa 1951/52, together with the hand-signed lithographic poster 'Nice Travail et Joie' from 1947, and several lithographs from the posthumously published Verve portfolio 'Dernières Oeuvres de Matisse', also known as Verve 35/36.
The gallery describes the Matisse group as an opportunity to show the range of his practice, from the intimacy of a single drawing to printed works whose rarity and provenance are emphasised in the listings. Hidden, which is based in Bristol and presents work through its Islington Studio by appointment, positions the group within its wider focus on sought-after limited-edition prints by major twentieth- and twenty-first-century artists.
At the centre of the selection is 'Paule Caen-Martin (Yellow)', an original drawing in ink on a yellow gouache base, circa 1951/52, measuring 15.1 by 9.1 cm and hand-signed with initials below right. Hidden states that in the last years of his life Matisse developed this approach by working over gouache backgrounds, often in orange, ochre or yellow, before adding black line in ink. The gallery also identifies the sitter as Paule Caen-Martin, a studio assistant who worked with Matisse from February 1949 to spring 1952.
The gallery’s text places this drawing within Matisse’s broader late working method, noting that the coloured ground was integral to the artist’s vision and to the “chromatic resonance” of the final work. Hidden also cites art historian Jack Cowart on Matisse’s long use of cut-outs as a design tool for murals, decorations and preparatory composition. In the gallery’s account, assistants such as Lydia Delectorskaya and Paule Caen-Martin played important roles in that process.
Among the printed works, 'Nice Travail et Joie' is presented as a lithographic poster on Arches wove paper, 113 by 75 cm, from an edition of 300 on Arches paper and 10,000 on poster paper, and signed in ink by Matisse. Hidden describes it as exceptionally rare in hand-signed form. The gallery links the poster to Matisse’s collaboration with the printer Fernand Mourlot and to the artist’s close supervision of colour proofs, corrections and details. It also notes that the poster features 'Still Life with Pomegranates', part of the Vence Interiors that Matisse developed in his final years.
The selection extends to a number of lithographs from Verve 35/36, including 'Nu Bleu IV', 'Zulma', 'Souvenir d'Oceanie' and 'Tristesse du Roi', each listed as a lithograph from the edition of 2000. Hidden says these images were begun in 1950 and were produced directly by Matisse in collaboration with Mourlot, reproducing his cut-out imagery for the portfolio published posthumously by Teriade in Paris in 1958. The gallery’s text also notes that the works are in strong condition and describes them as increasingly scarce.
Hidden’s entry for 'Souvenir d'Oceanie' connects the composition to Matisse’s 1930 trip to Tahiti, describing it as a semi-abstract memory of the harbour and the South Pacific’s light and colour. Its listing refers to the Catalogue Raisonné, Duthuit 139 and Freitag 6231, and the same references appear in the gallery’s entry for 'Zulma' and 'Tristesse du Roi'. Hidden says the original 'Tristesse du Roi' is now held by the Centre Pompidou in Paris, while the lithograph in the selection belongs to the same late flowering of cut-out work. The artworks are available to view by appointment at Hidden’s Islington Studio in London.
