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Lot Essay
Despite the hardships of the early years of the German occupation, and the discomfort of recovering from major surgery, Matisse executed 158 drawings in 1941-1942 that were gathered into a portfolio, reproduced and published in 1943 as Dessins: Thèmes et variations. The poet Louis Aragon wrote the preface. The drawings were executed systematically: there were seventeen sequences or themes, lettered A to P, with each theme consisting of three to nineteen variations. In twelve of the sequences the theme drawing (bearing the number 1) was executed in charcoal, with the remaining variations done in pen and India ink, black Conté crayon or pencil. Eleven of the themes featured women, the remaining six were still-life subjects. In his study of the Thèmes et variations, Jack Flam wrote:
"At the time he was doing these drawings, Matisse wrote his son Pierre: 'For a year now I have been making an enormous effort in drawing. I say effort, but that is a mistake, because what has occurred is a flowering after fifty years of effort.' This 'flowering' came at a time when he had just barely escaped death, after a grave illness. It also coincided with his renewed interest in the writings of Henri Bergson...Thus for a number of reasons, at the time Matisse did the Thèmes et variations drawings he was very much preoccupied with mediations on time and happening, memory and the relativity of experience" (in "Matisse's Dessins Thèmes et variations: A Book and a Method," exh. cat., Staatsgalerie, op. cit., p. 121).
"At the time he was doing these drawings, Matisse wrote his son Pierre: 'For a year now I have been making an enormous effort in drawing. I say effort, but that is a mistake, because what has occurred is a flowering after fifty years of effort.' This 'flowering' came at a time when he had just barely escaped death, after a grave illness. It also coincided with his renewed interest in the writings of Henri Bergson...Thus for a number of reasons, at the time Matisse did the Thèmes et variations drawings he was very much preoccupied with mediations on time and happening, memory and the relativity of experience" (in "Matisse's Dessins Thèmes et variations: A Book and a Method," exh. cat., Staatsgalerie, op. cit., p. 121).