Matisse in the Barnes Foundation: 3 Vol. Set

A landmark volume―the first authoritative publication to cover in its entirety one of the most significant holdings of Matisse in the world.

Matisse in the Barnes Foundation is a vibrant celebration―slip-cased and beautifully produced―of the Barnes’s extraordinary Matisse collection; comprised of fifty-nine works from every stage of the artist’s career, it is among the most important in the world.

At the heart of the collection are Matisse’s most historically significant paintings, Le Bonheur de vivre, also called The Joy of Life, and The Dance, the monumental mural that Albert C. Barnes commissioned to fill the lunettes of the Foundation’s main gallery, transforming both the space and the artist’s career. An essay by editor Yve-Alain Bois addresses the evolution of The Dance and its role in Matisse’s career.

An essay by Karen Butler looks at what Barnes thought of Matisse; Claudine Grammont considers how and why he collected his work. The works themselves, sumptuously reproduced, are the subjects of interpretive analyses that tell the stories of their acquisition and address their critical reception. The book includes major contributions by Barbara Buckley and Jennifer Mass on the artist’s technique and a report on the latest findings on the pigments used in Le Bonheur de vivre. 656 illustrations, 606 in color

Karen Butler is the assistant curator, Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, Saint Louis.

Claudine Grammont is head of the graphic arts department at the Centre Pompidou, and formerly director of the Musée Matisse in Nice, France.

Barbara Buckley is the head of the Conservation Department at the Barnes.

Jennifer Mass is a senior scientist in the Analytical Department at Winterthur Museum, Delaware.

Yve-Alain Bois is an author and professor of Art History at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.