Matisse: Colour Library (Phaidon Colour Library)

Let this handsome volume introduce you to the great French painter Henri Matisse through a brief but informative biography and more than 80 full-color reproductions. Included are works from more than five decades in various styles- -early still lifes, Mediterranean allegories, vivid dance images, and the collages that so clearly say "Matisse." One of his last, most ambitious endeavors is a stained glass for a chapel at Vence in the south of France--one of the most acclaimed ensembles of church decoration of the 20th century.