Color lithograph, 1950. 760x540 mm; 30x21 1/4 inches. Edition of 700. Signed in ink, lower left.
La Maison de la Pensee Française, home to exhibitions, conferences and performances, opened in Paris at the end of World War II and remained a driving force in French cultural life through the 1960s. Matisse created this image for an exhibition of his own works using his "papiers decoupes" (cut-paper collages) technique which he had famously begun working with in the early 1950s. The maquette was transferred onto lithographic stones at Mourlot's printing studio. Mourlot 42.
