MATISSE HENRI (1869-1954).

Lot 150
Go to lot
Estimation :
4000 - 5000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 4 550EUR
MATISSE HENRI (1869-1954).
L.A.S. "H. Matisse", Nice June 10, 1943, [to Henry de MONTHERLANT]; 4 pages in-4, the last one with decorative pink pencil frame. Very beautiful and amusing letter, partly about the preparation of Pasiphaé. Song of Minos by Montherlant, with engravings by Matisse (Fabiani, 1944). He laughed heartily at Montherlant's adventures in Cimiez and Rochechouart: "when you left my house, you were capable of all kinds of foolishness". Then on the photographer Laure ALBIN-GUILLOT: "Mme Debin-Guillot's nude photos [sic] make me dream, it's rather your way of talking about them that turns me on. Where can we see these nudes. Is it this lady who lived in Grasse as well as your mind lately, which did me little good for what I had to do with a few hours of your physical and moral presence?" He would like to see her, "with her so beautiful pictures..." He has rented a villa in Vence to rest: "It has been two years and three months since I stopped working, except when I had a vesicular crisis, or when I was repairing myself. I am leaving without paper, without a pencil - only with The Flowers of Evil, which I must translate into engravings. I would prefer to live with Ch. d'Orléans - all finished unfortunately! Your P [Pasiphae] and Minos are finished, you will see the engravings soon. Matisse asks how to present the "preface conference" and the note. You have to wait another fifteen days: "you will see everything cooked. And although you don't like lino engraving, you will probably be satisfied. Do you know that I could not stop working on it or thinking about it, night and day, since I had your visit. 7 engravings for Minos 7 for Pasiphae and a suite of 15 engravings in appendix to the volume - engravings called "refused". [...] Would you have the brilliance, the richness of the light of the diamond? I will not make you wait, at the last touch you will see the beautiful one - and yet I have not yet returned as you threw me out on your last trip"... And to quote, framing it with pink pencil arabesques, an amusing little poem from a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale: "Prenés en gré du manche de ma couille"... And he adds: "(I am not told if it is by Ch. d'Orléans). Why did you write to me lately that I should illustrate Chinese and Persian poems. The Persians I know a little from Mardrus's translation - but the Chinese where can I find them? N.B. Will you believe me to be the brain of an obsessed old man - you would be very much mistaken. When I worked on your book of groups in the constellations I did it as architecture in a known but unlamented landscape"...
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue