In the event, Matisse finally arrived at his favorite pose, for all four works—intertwining legs and an arm stretching behind the neck.

Frustrated in his attempts to successfully marry dominant and contrasting tones, the artist was moved to use solid slabs of single color early in his career, a technique that became known as Fauvism.

The painted gouache cut-outs that compose the Blue Nudes were inspired by Matisse's collection of African sculpture and his visit to Tahiti, in 1930.

He required another twenty years and a post-operative period of incapacity, before Matisse synthesized those African and Polynesian influences into this seminal series.

[1] The series was later shown at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) from October 2014 to February 2015 as part of the exhibition Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs.