Author: Henri Matisse (1869-1954) Title: Nudo Blu II (1952) Size: 80 x 60 cm Offset print made on thick 240g, high-quality paper. Displays a vivid and sharp image. Copyright: Succession H. Matisse, SIAE 2003 - Printed in Italy. New to frame. Shipping in a rigid tube via certified express mail. It is possible to collect more than one object, from the same auction, in the same shipment. Henri Matisse (1869–1954) was a French painter and sculptor, one of the great masters of Fauvism. This work is part of a series of four large Blue Nudes (Nu bleu I–IV). They’re made using the papiers découpés technique — paper painted with a deep blue gouache, cut out and then pasted onto a backing. They depict nude female figures in different poses, highly simplified yet full of expression. Matisse created them while recovering from surgery, working from a wheelchair or even from his bed, assisted by helpers who arranged the cut-outs under his direction. The Blue Nudes are often seen as a kind of culmination of his career: after decades of painting and sculpture, he discovered in these cut-outs a new way of “painting with scissors.” The order I–IV doesn’t follow a strict chronology, but rather variations on the same theme and posture. When first shown in New York in 1953, the works created a sensation because many critics saw them as “radical” pieces by an 82-year-old artist. Today they’re spread across different museums (for example, Nu bleu II at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and Nu bleu III at the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland).