(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1972).

SCARCE FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, THE FINE AMERICAN ISSUE PRINTED IN FRANCE. A huge, fascinating look at Matisse and his creative process by Aragon, one of France's foremost poets, covering the twenty-seven years of their acquaintance. Profusely illustrated with photographs of the artist and his models, paintings, and drawings these 2 thick volumes are both a visual and literary treat.
“It took Aragon close to twenty-seven years to put this book together. He assembled here all that he had ever written on Matisse, adding to it, elaborating on it, providing his glosses, letting memory do its creative work, shaping his material into what it pleases him to call ‘a novel’, and allowing himself numerous digressions. In spite of his elliptical ways, however, the subject ‘Matisse’ is overwhelmingly present, most obviously through the illustrations, carefully keyed into the text following Aragon’s layout instructions and admirably illuminating it, but no less through Matisse’s own words which Aragon records with scrupulous fidelity. What he has arrived at is a dialogue between writer and painter unique in writings on artists and art and uniquely revealing of the creative process.”. Item #29110

2 volumes. First edition in English. With 155 color illustrations and a vast profusion of black and white illustrations throughout, several folding, over 500 in all. 4to, original white cloth, lettered in orange on the spines and upper covers, in the publisher's colour decorated dustjackets and red cloth slipcase. [vi], 356; [iv], 366 pp. A very fine set, the books essentially pristine, the dustjackets likewise but for a touch of minor rubbing to the tips, the publisher's slipcase also very fine.