'Matisse altered painting so decisively that our experience of any painting must be affected by what he achieved.'
Building upon the radical stylistic developments of Fauvism, using bold colour as a means of expression, Matisse's mature style continued to focus on expressive form with heavy, flowing outlines and swathes of vivid colour. Perspective is shallow or non-existent, the flatness of the picture surface relieved by decorative patterns. 'Colours have a beauty of their own which must be preserved, as one strives to preserve tonal quality in music', he wrote. 'It is a question of organisation and construction which is sensitive to maintaining this beautiful freshness of colour'.
Henri Matisse's Maternité from 1939 is an exquisite example of the artist's works in charcoal, enhanced with the technique of shading also known as 'estompe'. Amongst the artist's most expressive media, in his own words, '…charcoal or stump drawing ... allows me to consider simultaneously the character of the model, her human expression, the quality of surrounding light, the atmosphere and all that can only be expressed by drawing' (Notes of a Painter, 1939). The series to which the present work belongs, titled Maternité (or La Famille) was among the first to be executed during Matisse's famous residence at the Hotel Regina in Nice.
The artist embarked on the series in early January 1939, with the intention of producing a painting on the theme, but no final canvas was ever produced. The subject matter is unusually intimate for Matisse, whose modernist creations often omitted personal references to focus on colour and form.
The female subject to the left is recognised as Lydia Délectorskaya, the Russian beauty that served as his closest ally during the last three decades of his life. Their professional and personal collaboration resulted in some of the artist's most iconic paintings and Délectorskaya assisted Matisse in the creation of his 'cut-outs' executed from the late 1940s
