1942 Mid Century print after Matisse, “Seated Odalisque” framed vintage art

Henri Matisse (1869–1954), “Seated Odalisque, Left Knee Bent, Ornamental Background and Checkerboard”, after the 1928 painting; rare vintage colour offset print, Sydney, dating from 1942, presented under glass with a white inner mount, olive-green mat with gilt ruling and black timber frame.

53cm x 44cm frame

28cm c 19cm artwork 

A richly decorative example of Matisse’s celebrated odalisque imagery, the composition combines a relaxed seated figure with emerald-green pantaloons, patterned textiles, warm reds and ochres, and a striking checkerboard detail, creating the interplay of colour, pattern and flattened space characteristic of his Nice-period interiors.

Artist biography: Henri Matisse was born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France, in 1869 and initially trained in law before turning to painting in the early 1890s. He became the leading figure of Fauvism, the revolutionary movement associated with intense, non-naturalistic colour, and developed into one of the defining artists of twentieth-century modernism. Matisse worked across painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking and, later in life, his celebrated paper cut-outs. During his years in Nice, particularly through the 1920s, he repeatedly explored the odalisque subject, placing figures within elaborately patterned interiors filled with rugs, screens and textiles; these compositions allowed him to investigate the balance between figure, ornament, line and colour. His work is represented in virtually every major international modern-art collection, and he died in Nice in 1954.