368 pages | 653 images
The Art Institute of Chicago | The Museum of Modern Art
By Stephanie D’Alessandro and John Elderfield

This catalogue is divided into three time periods; each opens with a chronology. Eight essays serve as introductions to 54 entries that connect Matisse’s paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints, revealing information about his methods and reworking of compositions through comparisons, x-rays, diagrams and archival images. The book design and content evolved jointly, alternating between ideas from the curators’ research and designs that gave structure to the extensive and complex material. The fonts are Stempel Garamond, which closely resembles the font used in Matisse’s Livres d’Artistes, and Syntax, a beautiful and legible sans serif with forms based on Renaissance fonts.

You got your arms around one of the most ambitious and challenging projects my former department has ever done . . . the design is beautiful, and intelligent, and is critical to telling the story. It is present but does not get in the way.
Susan Rossen, Former Executive Director of Publications, The Art Institute of Chicago