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Les Codomas





The title, "Les Codomas", is inspired by Henri Matisse's artist's book of 250 prints which he collectively called Jazz (1947). It contains the unfolded pochoirs without the text, based on paper cutouts by Henri Matisse. Tériade, a noted 20th century art publisher, arranged to have Matisse's cutouts rendered as pochoir (stencil) prints.



Many of the prints in Jazz take their theme from the theatre or circus. Tériade came up with the seemingly inappropriate title. However, Matisse not only went along, but was taken with the idea, sensing a connection of the visual and musical through improvisation on a theme.


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