“The exhibition at Dina Vierny Gallery presents a group of Matisse self-portraits that are, in every respect, the opposite of those we have just mentioned. At the other end of the spectrum, where they were born: these drawings are at the end of the Matissian chronology, dating from 1944 and 1945, ten years before his death. They are very different from the early ones in terms of the method used: they are line drawings, pen and black ink on white paper, and Matisse would have been hard-pressed to draw like this around 1900. He only explored, or rather developed, the full potential of this mode of drawing (which he made into an extraordinary adventure) in the admirable series he executed in 1935 and 1936; Matisse himself was fully aware of what he had achieved there: “My line drawing is the direct and purest translation of my emotion”. The late self-portraits on show here are also the antithesis of those of the early years in terms of the spirit that emanates from them. We would like to dwell on one of them for the particular quality of angelism that distinguishes it. We must never lose sight of the fact that, for Matisse, these drawings were first and foremost about plasticity, and not, above all, about psychology. If there is a psychological message, and an indelible one at that, it is only such because it is conveyed by a new and specific plastic; from then on, this message, this psychological charge, takes on a character that is both inevitable and secondary - it is of a force that seems inevitable because of the highly original plastic that delivers it, and secondary in relation to this very originality.” (Dominique Fourcade, excerpt from the exhibition catalog)