12th Oct, 2019 16:00

OstLicht Photo Auction Autumn 2019

 
  Lot 60
 

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON (1908–2004)
Henri Matisse, Vence February 1944

Sold for €8,500


Lot details

Estimate: € 10.000–12.000

Gelatin silver print, printed in the late 1980s / early 1990s

24 x 36 cm

Signed by the photographer in ink in the margin, his blindstamp in the margin lower left

LITERATURE Peter Galassi (ed.), Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century, New York 2010, p. 226.

The French painter Henri Matisse has been forever fixed in our minds by Cartier-Bresson. The picture shows the painter at his home, the »Villa Le Rêve«, surrounded by birds and his head draped by a turban. Although it was taken in 1944, ten years before the master’s death, Matisse was already a broken man. In 1939, he and his wife had separated after 41 years of marriage. In 1941 he underwent a colostomy, which confined him to a wheelchair. Cartier-Bresson deeply admired Matisse who later designed the jacket of his photo book classic The Decisive Moment.

Start price: €6.000