La Danseuse Creole Musée Matisse, Nice 1965, Orginal Poster

"Matisse used this cut-out picture to design a poster with the Mourlot Studios to promote the city of Nice for the French Tourism Office in 1965. The image, ""Danseuse Créole"" (Creole Dancer), is one of Matisse’s favourite pieces. He sketched the American dancer Katherine Dunham while she performed in his studio and, using surplus pieces of colored paper, created the cut-out in a single day. He gifted the work to the Musée Matisse in Nice in 1953.

Artist: Henri Matisse (1869-1954), the French artist, draughtsman, printmaker, sculptor, and painter, was one of the undisputed masters and most influential artists of 20th-century art. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and quickly became the leader of the Fauvist movement. Known for his use of brilliant color inspired by his time on the French Riviera, and his fluid and original draughtsmanship, Matisse was one of the three artists, along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, who revolutionised the art world starting in the 1900s. Over his 60-year career, his vast output included painting, drawing, sculpture, and graphic arts—etchings, linocuts, aquatints, paper cut-outs, and book illustrations. He also collaborated with Mourlot Studios on lithographs and exhibition posters."