Books by Matisse provide an intimate experience at the Bechtler

If you are a regular at the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, you know that most of its exhibitions have come from the museum’s collection.

“The Art Books of Henri Matisse,” on view through Sept 7, is the Bechtler’s first prepackaged exhibition. However, it is not from a faraway museum – it comes via Bank of America, right up the street.

In 2008, the bank instituted Art in Our Communities, converting its massive permanent collection into a program that loans exhibitions for free.

The Bechtler began working with BofA in 2014 to pull together this show, complementing it with artist books from its own collection.

Matisse produced 12 limited-edition books. The four owned by BoA are rich in contrasts. There are simple linocuts, as well as lithographs created in collaboration with a master printer. For three of the books, Matisse illustrated existing poems and stories.

The centerpiece of the show is the iconic “Jazz,” for which he created both image and text.

Overcoming adversity is big part of the Matisse story. His groundbreaking late-career cutouts came about when, following cancer surgery, he was bedridden and unable to paint.

The art book was popular among modern artists (Picasso’s version of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” probably inspired Matisse and publisher Skira to venture into the medium), but it was also something that Matisse could do despite physical challenges.

The first book in the exhibition is “Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé” (The Poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé), published in 1932.

Here, sensuous, delicate etchings provide a wonderful counterpoint to the drama of Mallarmé’s poetry, with complex images rendered in a few lines.

For “Pasiphaé, Chant de Minos” (Pasiphaé, Song of Minos), published in 1944, Matisse created bold linoleum cuts to illustrate the story of the Cretan queen who falls in love with a bull and gives birth to the fearsome Minotaur.

The thick white lines on dense black backgrounds mimic Greek vase painting.

“Jazz,” published in 1947, is Matisse’s most famous book.

In a process that took several years, he created 20 vivid cut-paper collages, and then made prints of them using a stencil technique called pochior; the calligraphed text is lithographed.

“Jazz” is heavy on theater and circus imagery. But it also addresses modernity, with references to the then-new phenomenon of commercial air travel, and myth, with its famous image of Icarus falling from the sky.

“Jazz” abounds with sensuous female forms and lush vegetation that, although starkly simplified and abstracted, are filled with vitality.

Bold and energetic, “Jazz” has an improvisatory feel that belies the rigor it took to produce it.

If you’re viewing this exhibition intently, exhaustion will kick in by the time you get to “Poèmes de Charles d’Orléans” (Poems of Charles d’Orleans).

This 1950 book is dominated by fleur-de-lys and other decorative elements, with text in Matisse’s own handwriting.

In the Bechtler’s extremely low light – required for delicate works on paper – this work looks tired, as if Matisse was disengaged.

But viewing it online reveals its power and beauty. This is quiet work that would probably best be viewed in traditional book form.

In the final gallery is an engaging assortment of books from the Bechtler’s collection – portfolios of individual prints, hardbound books, and even a sketchbook by artists such as Leger, Braque, Tapies and Calder.

Amid the work of these luminaries are two charming accordion-fold books by the relatively obscure Swiss artist Warja Honegger-Lavater.

As always, we are reminded that the Bechtler Museum houses a family’s collection, one filled with idiosyncrasy and the love of art for art’s sake.

This story was originally published July 1, 2015 at 2:14 PM.