Henri Matisse’s paintings and drawings are some of the most revered in the art world and his cut outs are widely believed to represent the zenith of his artistic career. When Jazz, Matisse’s revolutionary handmade book of paper cut outs, was published in the early 1940s, it was considered a dramatic departure for the artist. Eventually he came to consider the cut out as his primary artistic medium. This collection of superb reproductions and critical essays offers a chance to appreciate the full spectrum of Matisse’s work, from the early models for Jazz to the large-scale works that dominated the artist’s final creative period, and offers fascinating new discoveries about the connections between the cut outs and his earliest works.