Henri Matisse (France, 1869-1954), La Gerbe, 1953
Ceramic tile embedded in plaster; 108 x 156 in.; Weight: 2000 lbs.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of Frances L. Brody, in honor of the museum's twenty-fifth anniversary
© 2026 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
In the last years of his life, Henri Matisse was commissioned by collectors Sidney and Frances Brody to create a ceramic wall work for their A. Quincy Jones−designed home in Los Angeles. Color was the key focus of Matisse’s art—decorative in conception and emotionally expressive; his goal was to produce “an art of balance, of purity and serenity.” If Matisse’s Fauve works (beginning in 1905) are understood as a dialogue between color and line, his last works—the so-called gouaches découpées, or cut gouaches—stand as a summation of his intentions. La Gerbe, executed in ceramic, is Matisse’s only West Coast commission. It is based on a paper cutout of the same title in the Grunwald Center Collection, Hammer Museum, UCLA.
Stephanie Barron
