The Dream

In 1935 a young Russian emigree, Lydia Delectorskaya, began sitting for Matisse almost every day in his Nice studio; she would go on to run his household and his affairs for the rest of his life. Here she sleeps with her head on her crossed arms, the pose reduced to a few flowing lines of pink laid over blue. Matisse rarely trusted a first version. He had a photographer record the canvas at successive stages, and six of those states survive, showing the arms, the face and the pattern of the blouse simplified again and again until almost nothing was left to take away. That same year, and the same model, gave him the Pink Nude he reworked more than 20 times.