The Art Books of Henri Matisse

This exhibition is held in the The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, it is the first public display of these works in Europe. The exhibition featured four of Matisse’s most artistically significant books, including the famous Jazz, on loan from the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Collection and a copy of Matisse’s illustrated version of James Joyce’s Ulysses. The exhibition runs until 25 September 2011.

I wanted to view the artwork that Matisse produced for Ulysses, would have loved to have flicked through the book 26 full-page illustrations with the text. But unfortunately there were only a few framed spreads, accompanying the pieces from Ulysses were other page spreads from the poems of Charles d’Orléans and the Poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé.

It was interesting to find out on — (www.henri-matisse.net) that Joyce was happy that an artist of Matisse’s standing was to illustrate Ulysses. ‘But after some consideration, he became worried that the Frenchman might not be familiar enough with the Irish terrain to do the job. He attempted to have a friend in Ireland send the artist an illustrated weekly from Dublin around 1904. When he discovered that Matisse had not even read the book, but instead depicted six episodes from Homer’s Odyssey, Joyce flew into a rage and refused to sign any more copies’ What a conflict, wouldn’t have liked to have been George Macy the publisher trying to keep these two artist content. nevertheless  ‘It was a great idea to bring them together; celebrities of the same generation, of similar virtuosity'.

Cover of Ulysses.