MONTEREY, CA.- The Monterey Museum of Art announces the opening of Henri Matisse: Improvisation, Friday, February 1-May 19, 2013 at the Monterey Museum of Art-Pacific Street, 559 Pacific Street, Monterey, CA.

Henri Matisse is one of the most celebrated artists of the twentieth century. In the 1920s he revolutionized the use of color and line in painting for which he has long been celebrated.

The book Jazz, created in 1943-44, became his first major cut paper project and the pivotal work in his transition from oil painting to this new and innovative technique. It includes twenty brilliantly colored prints based on motifs taken largely from the circus, the music hall, folklore, and travel, as well as twenty pages of Matisse’s freely hand-written text. Matisse’s use of hand-colored and cut paper, a technique he invented, allowed him to work with colors directly and to apply them to the surface without the use of paint or brush. He continued to exhibit and to work with this method of expression for the rest of his life, applying the cut-out motif to many projects, including ceramic tiles, murals and stained glass windows.

Henri Matisse’s Jazz was donated to the Monterey Museum of Art in 1980.

The exhibition opens in conjunction with exhibitions of Beth Van Hoesen’s works on paper and Monterey Now: Johnny Apodaca.