HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954)
HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954)
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PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED PRIVATE COLLECTION
HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954)

Deux femmes

Details
HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954)
Deux femmes
signed and dated 'Henri Matisse 38' (lower right)
pen and India ink on paper
15 x 20 in. (38 x 50.8 cm.)
Executed in Nice in June 1938
Provenance
Pierre Matisse, New York; sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 11 May 1966, lot 8.
Schoneman Galleries, New York.
Joan & Lester Avnet, New York, and thence by descent.
Private collection, New York, by whom acquired from the above, circa 1971.
Private collection, United States, by whom acquired from the above, on 8 December 2009; sale, Sotheby's, London, 29 June 2021, lot 102.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.
Literature
C. Roger-Marx, Matisse, Paris, 1938, pl. 30 (illustrated).
M. Georges-Michel, Les grandes époques de la peinture 'moderne': De Delacroix à nos jours, Paris, 1945, p. 222 (illustrated on the cover; titled 'Dessin').
F. Dvorak, Henri Matisse Drawings, Prague, 1962, pl. 29 (illustrated).
R.J. Moulin, Henri Matisse, Drawings and Paper Cut-Outs, London, 1969, p. 47 (illustrated pl. 29; with incorrect medium).
M. Luzi & M. Carrà, L'opera di Matisse dalla rivolta 'fauve' all'intimismo, 1904 - 1928, Milan, 1971, no. D 30, p. 111 (illustrated p. 110; titled 'Ragazze' and with incorrect medium).
L. Delectorskaya, L’apparente facilité, Henri Matisse, Peintures de 1935-1939, Paris, 1986, p. 265 (illustrated).
Exhibited
Philadelphia, Museum of Art, Henri Matisse, Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, April - May 1948, no. 141, p. 44 (titled 'Bust of Two Young Girls'; with incorrect medium and dimensions).
New York, American Federation of Arts, Figures and Faces: 19th & 20th Century Master Drawings from the Lester and Joan Avnet Collection, September 1967 - September 1969, no. 26, p. 8 (illustrated n.p.).
Rome, Scuderie del Quirinale, Matisse: arabesque, March - June 2015, no. 204, pp. 213 & 241 (illustrated p. 213; with incorrect medium).
Further Details
The late Wanda de Guébriant confirmed the authenticity of this work.

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Lot Essay


Henri Matisse’s drawing Deux femmes, executed in Nice in the summer of 1938, represents a significant moment in the artist’s production between the wars. The work belongs to a sequence of related drawings and oils in which Matisse explored compositional ideas that would eventually culminate in one of his major undertakings of that year: the over-mantel decoration for Nelson Rockefeller’s apartment in New York. By the late 1930s, Matisse had returned with renewed intensity to the graphic arts, creating works that distilled his vision into its most essential component: the contour.
The composition of Deux femmes is characteristically economical yet charged with sensuality and rhythm. The two sitters—Lydia Delectorskaya, Matisse’s devoted studio assistant and model, and her cousin, Princess Hélène Galitzine—are seated in close proximity, their figures defined almost exclusively by sweeping, continuous outlines. Through the arabesque of the line, Matisse conveys volume, intimacy, and the palpable rapport between the women, without recourse to shading or descriptive detail. The choice of pen and India ink allowed him to achieve a balance of firmness and spontaneity: each line, at once deliberate and fluid, testifies to his exceptional control of gesture and his confidence in the expressive capacity of drawing. In this respect, the work echoes Matisse’s conviction, expressed in his writings, that drawing is not merely preparatory but a fully autonomous art form.
Executed in Nice, where Matisse had resided since the late 1910s, the drawing reflects the Mediterranean lightness and sensual atmosphere that permeated his work in this period. Nice provided him with a setting conducive to representations of women at leisure, often posed in domestic interiors or idyllic surroundings. In Deux femmes, the interlaced poses of Lydia and Hélène evoke themes of companionship, languor, and repose. Such motifs recur throughout Matisse’s œuvre of the 1930s, culminating in the celebrated series of ‘odalisques’ and seated female figures that integrate drawing, painting, and decorative design.
The date of June 1938 situates this drawing on the cusp of the Second World War, a moment when Matisse, despite the looming political crisis, maintained his exploration of harmony, serenity, and beauty through art. In contrast to the anxiety of the times, Deux femmes offers a vision of calm intimacy and aesthetic clarity. The drawing thus encapsulates Matisse’s enduring pursuit of an art that, as he famously declared, might serve as ‘a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair.’ (J. Flam, Matise on Art, Berkeley, 1995, p. 38).
As part of this larger group of interrelated works, Deux femmes demonstrates how Matisse used drawing both as a site of experimentation and as an end in itself. It embodies the fusion of sensual subject matter and radical simplicity of execution that defined his mature style, while also pointing forward to one of his most important decorative commissions of the decade.

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