Side Plate Set, Aquatint Portraits

© 2026 Succession H. Matisse / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York

Made by Henri Matisse in 1947 using aquatint—a printmaking technique that creates tonal effects by using acid and etched lines. Here, we see the subjects’ features depicted with a minimum of bold sweeps of black brushed directly on the copper plate.

"When I founded East Fork 15 years ago it was a deliberate choice to leave Matisse out of the name. The legacy of my great-grandfather had followed me around for 20 years and I wanted out. I had a feeling that if I tucked myself away in the woods, something was going to emerge and it would free me.

As East Fork took shape and form, a peculiar thing began to happen: no one had any idea that below the colorful pots there was any connection at all to the stern and famous Frenchman on my father’s side of the family.

And so many years later, I slowly welcomed him back in. First with a vibrant red glaze that nodded to The Red Studio, and culminating now, with the collection before you. Through careful and meticulous collaboration with my brother at Les Héritiers Matisse, the company protecting the integrity of Matisse’s work, we worked to ensure our representations of Matisse’s art were in congruence with the originals, that the blue in the cut-outs was as close to the original gouache as could be, and every splatter of ink in the aquatints was captured. To accompany it, we developed La Sirène, a new blue that’s our own nod to the iconic color we worked so hard to capture in the artwork. In 2025, much of his work entered the U.S. public domain and this collection, in part, came to be, as a way of marking that moment and presenting it on our forms, true and pure and unadulterated."

- Alex Matisse, CEO & Founder