Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

When Henri Matisse visited Tahiti in 1930, he often swam in the calm waters of a lagoon that lay between the island and the surrounding coral reef. Fourteen years later, Matisse recalled his Tahitian experience in three separate cutouts called "The Lagoon": "I used to bathe in the lagoon. I swam around the brilliant corals emphasized by the sharp black accents of holothurians [sea cucumbers]. I would plunge my head into the water transparent above the absinthe bottom of the lagoon, my eyes wide open, and then suddenly I would lift my head above the water and gaze at the luminous whole."

Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art has a complete copy of Matisse's Jazz (Eskenazi Museum of Art 65.23.1–.20) in its original slipcase bearing a personal inscription to the artist’s friend Jean Puy, a Post-Impressionist painter.