Original Henri Matisse Poster "Dina Vierny" 1982 - Mourlot

This is an original photo-lithographic poster printed by Mourlot Frères for an exhibition at the Galerie Dina Vierny in Paris in 1982 — one of the most intimate and personally charged galleries in post-war French art. The image reproduced is Vase de Fleurs, a line drawing executed by Matisse in June 1944, during the Occupation — a period in which he retreated into still life and the study of plants with an intensity that speaks of both forced confinement and absolute creative freedom.

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) needs no introduction — but the Galerie Dina Vierny demands one. Dina Vierny (1919–2009) was Matisse's model from the age of fifteen, discovered by the sculptor Aristide Maillol who sent her to Matisse in 1934. She sat for both artists for years, becoming one of the most celebrated muses in the history of 20th-century French art — and later, after the war, one of its most important gallerists and museum founders. The Musée Maillol in Paris, which she founded and ran, remains her monument. Her gallery on the rue de Grenelle was a space defined by the personal — by the direct transmission of artistic values from artist to dealer to collector. A Matisse poster for the Galerie Dina Vierny is not merely an exhibition announcement: it is a document of one of the great human and artistic relationships of the century.

The drawing itself — quick, gestural, a few lines capturing the essential weight and presence of flowers in a vase — is quintessential late Matisse: the line at its most economical, the feeling at its most immediate. He described this approach as drawing with scissors, though here the instrument is ink; the spirit is the same.

This example is in good condition — grade A — and is presented unframed, ready for the wall it deserves.

A quietly exceptional piece — Matisse's line, Dina Vierny's gallery, and thirty years of one of modern art's great relationships.