Original Poster By Henri Matisse 1955 - Menton, Printed Mourlot

This is an original lithographic poster created in 1955 by Henri Matisse for the Troisième Biennale de Peinture de Menton — one of the most prestigious recurring exhibitions on the French Riviera, held in the city whose extraordinary light, its proximity to Monaco and Nice, and its long tradition of welcoming artists had made it one of the great meeting points of modern art on the Mediterranean. Printed by Mourlot Frères, this poster was produced the year after Matisse's death — a posthumous tribute to the artist most closely identified with the light and colour of the South of France, for the biennial that embodied exactly those values.

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) had spent the final decades of his life on the Côte d'Azur — in Nice, in Vence, in the luminous Mediterranean world that transformed his palette and liberated his line. Menton, the southernmost city in France, just kilometres from the Italian border, shares with Nice and Vence that quality of light — warm, direct, reflective off the sea — that Matisse described as essential to his vision. The Biennale de Menton was a natural home for his image: a festival of painting, in the city of painters, on the coast he loved.

Mourlot Frères printed ten Matisse posters across their collaboration — each one a rare and carefully documented object. This 1955 poster, produced the year after the artist's death to honour an exhibition in his spiritual home, is among the most intimate of them all: a work that brings together Matisse, Mourlot, and the Mediterranean light in one quietly exceptional image.

The poster has been freshly linen backed — the gold standard of vintage poster conservation — with a small tear professionally restored at the top left corner. See pictures for full condition details.

A deeply personal piece — Matisse's light, Mourlot's craft, and the city on the Mediterranean that inspired them both.