Artist: Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
Title: Two Girls, Bouquet of Peonies on Black Background (Deux Fillettes, Bouquet de Pivoines sur Fond Noir)
Medium: Color heliogravure after the original 1947 oil on canvas.
Signature: Signed in the plate, lower right.
Printer: Atelier Draeger Freres
Dimensions: Image Size 6 3/4 x 8 1/8 inches
Framed Dimensions: Approximately 13 x 15 inches.
Framing: This piece has been professionally matted and framed using all new materials.
Henri Matisse (Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse) was a French artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts throughout the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Along with Picasso, Matisse helped to define and influence radical contemporary art in the 20th century. Although he was initially labelled a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.