129. IMPROVISATION
September 8, 2026
Henri Matisse
(1869–1954)
Jazz
Paris: Tériade Éditeur pour les Éditions Verve
1947
Henri Matisse designed this work in collaboration with his Green-born publisher, Tériade, the nom de plume of Efstratios Eleftheriades (1897–1983). Jazz comprises 20 vividly colored single- and double-spread pochoirs (stencil prints) created after the artist’s painted- and cut-paper collages. Bedridden and unable to paint or sculpt after being diagnosed with cancer in 1941, Matisse started using scissors to cut out vibrant colored-paper shapes that he then arranged as collages or paper cutouts. The volume’s images are paired with prints of Matisse’s own handwritten text and are largely inspired by mythology, the circus, and international travel. The set was issued in 1947 with the title Jazz, a name that appealed to Matisse because it connected art and musical improvisation.
(Source: The New York Public Library; The Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library’s Treasures viewable at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.)
“When Robbins arrived at City Ballet he found himself one of a company of forty dancers, many of them students of Balanchine’s school or veterans of companies like the Ballet Russe and Ballet Caravan, but some—like the impish, rubber-limbed Todd Bolender, who had worked with Hanya Holm—had modern-dance backgrounds. It was a young company, short on experience and polish; even its established principals, like Bolender or the swift, flashing Maria Tallchief or the steely-strong Marie-Jeanne, were hardly seasoned veterans like Danilova or Freddie Franklin or Pat Dolin. So there was a sense of adventure in the air, as if they were all making up some wonderful improvisation together.”
(Source: Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins by Amanda Vaill.)