The Back (I)

Henri Matisse · Paris, Couvent du Sacré Coeur, and Issy-les-Moulineaux, spring 1908-late 1909

The Back, the first of four, from around nineteen oh eight. A woman seen from behind, worked almost in the round — the muscles of the shoulders, the arm raised against the wall, everything a life class would ask for. Matisse would spend the next twenty-three years taking it away.

Medium Bronze · Dimensions 6' 2 3/8" x 44 1/2" x 6 1/2" (188.9 x 113 x 16.5 cm) · Credit Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund

Hanging beside it in The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden: Entrance Gate to Paris Subway (Métropolitain) Station, Paris, France, The Back (II)

More by Henri Matisse here: The Back (II), The Back (III), The Back (IV), Tiari, Dance (I), The Moroccans