Rosa Akt

Matisse worked on this reclining figure for about six months in 1935, photographing it at every stage. He sent 22 of those photographs to his patron Etta Cone in Baltimore, and they record the body swelling, shrinking, and flattening as he went. His model was Lydia Delectorskaya, hired first to look after his wife, then made his studio manager and near-constant subject. Between versions he had the canvas wiped down with turpentine and started the figure over, so nothing here was reached in a single sitting. What is left is pink flesh pressed against a grid of blue and white. Cone kept the photographs alongside the finished painting, and the two came to Baltimore together.