Henri Matisse : Fleurs Et Fruits, Une Restauration Majeure

A monumental composition of cut-out gouache papers, Fleurs et Fruits was painted by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) two years before his death. Bequeathed to the City of Nice by Amélie Matisse in 1958, it is the largest cut-out gouache in French collections, and is an exceptional testimony to what is considered the apotheosis of Matisse's work.

On the occasion of its exhibition at the National Art Center in Tokyo as part of an original hors-les-murs exhibition in the Musée Matisse collection, a major restoration project was carried out on this large cut-out gouache, and it was installed in a new custom-made display case to ensure its preservation for future generations.

This book retraces this adventure. It opens with an essay by Anne Coron, an art historian specialising in Matisse's cut-out gouaches, who carried out an in-depth investigation of Fleurs et fruits, and then gives the floor to the people who made the new presentation of the work possible (the museum's conservation team, heritage restorers, display case makers, fitters and installers, etc.). It also looks back at the scientific analysis campaign carried out by the CICRP's engineers, which has opened up new avenues of research into cut-out gouache paper, a fragile medium that is still too little studied from a technical point of view.