Katia in gelber Bluse

Matisse was 81 in 1951 and had not worked much in oil for years. He had spent the previous three on the chapel at Vence, consecrated that June, and most of his days since surgery in 1941 were spent in bed cutting shapes out of painted paper. Katia was Carmen Leschennes, a Swiss model brought to him by Lydia Delectorskaya, the assistant who ran his household. He drew her, modelled her in sculpture, and painted her twice between the autumn of 1950 and the summer of 1952. This canvas is generally taken to be the last painting he made. Lyon bought it in 2021 for 4.8 million euros, raised by a club of private supporters with the city and the state behind them, and hung it with the 20th century on the second floor.