Henri Matisse Jazz

This large-scale facsimile edition brims with drama and shows why Jazz is considered Matisse's most celebrated--and joyous--foray into the combination of color and form. The loose-leaf folded facsimile pages are gathered in a special ribbon-tied, cloth-bound presentation case. Many of these images were inspired by the theater or circus, settings that connect the visual and musical through improvisation--a theme that can be felt running through the compositions of the prints themselves. Such iconic prints as Icare ("Icarus") and L'avaleur de sabres ("The Sword Swallower") appear alongside paintbrush-composed notes Matisse wrote for himself as he created the images.

This edition is accompanied by a special book mounted on the reverse of box cover, featuring both a translation of Matisse's text and two new essays: one examining Jazz's principal place among other artists' books; the other surveying the history of artists' books as a field.