Blue Nude I - Henri Matisse

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The Blue Nudes are a renowned series of gouaches découpées by Henri Matisse, created in 1952. These artworks feature female nudes either standing or seated and represent some of Matisse's last works across any medium. During the early to mid-1940s, Matisse suffered from poor health which led him to stop painting by 1950. Instead, he focused on paper cutouts. The Blue Nudes are a significant part of Matisse's final series known as the cutouts. To Matisse, blue symbolized distance and volume. His attempts to combine dominant and contrasting tones frustrated him early in his career, leading him to use solid blocks of single color, a technique later known as Fauvism. The Blue Nudes' painted gouache cut-outs were inspired by Matisse's African sculpture collection and his 1930 visit to Tahiti. It took another two decades and a period of incapacity post-surgery for Matisse to synthesize these influences into this groundbreaking series.