The gallery devoted the stand to Matisse etchings from the private collection of John Kasmin. This exquisite, single-owner collection of twenty-two small etchings from the 1920s-30s was compiled by the celebrated British art dealer and has hung in his London home since the 1980s. This is the first time these works have been exhibited publicly. The collection contains iconic Matisse images, including the reclining nude, woman with goldfish bowl and the dancing figure.
In Matisse’s etchings, we find the most complete distillation of his line. While his paintings have earned him renown as one of the great colourists of the twentieth century, his prints … reveal that he was no less a draughtsman, endowed with an astonishing capacity to conjure with just a few deft strokes of the burin … the essence of a sitter or the pose of a figure – Ann Dumas, Curator, the Royal Academy of Arts, from her catalogue essay on Matisse prints from the John Kasmin Collection.