MAKING PARADISE: ART, MODERNITY, AND THE MYTH OF THE FRENCH RIVIERIA
by Kenneth E. Silver
Between 1947 and 1951, Matisse devoted himself almost full-time to the creation of the Chapel of the Rosary. Intended for the private worship of the Dominican nuns whose convent was near Matisse’s villa in Vence, the chapel owed its initial impulse to one of them, Sister Jacques-Marie. Before taking her vows, as Monique Bourgeois, she had been a nurse; she had watched over the ailing artist when he was recovering from serious abdominal surgery several years earlier. ...