A pair of Matisse's finely detailed self-portraits from around 1900, inspired by Rembrandt's 1648 etching of himself at a window, starts off the show. One of them suggests what Fisher calls "an aura around his hands," Matisse's way to emphasize the principal tools of his craft.
By the time the viewer reaches a 1951 self-portrait, the artist concentrates only on his face, this time with an almost goofy expression and glasses that look as if they've been shattered - a wonderfully animated characterization achieved by an uncanny economy of lines.
The 1906 "Long Nude" finds Matisse ahead of his time. The rendering of an eyeless, featureless woman, her elbows pulled up off to one side of her head and one knee crossed over the other, seems to be but a few small steps away from Cubism. It's an image that gets to the heart of Matisse's interest and delight in sculptural shapes, a theme echoed diversely throughout the display. (Nudes populate this show in significant numbers.)
Among the BMA-owned Matisse prints are many from the almost legendary Cone Collection, the legacy of Baltimore sisters Claribel and Etta Cone to the museum. And the thoroughness of their approach to collecting art pays strong dividends in this particular exhibit.
"For me," Fisher says, "the central aspect of Matisse's printmaking is the fact that he worked in series, producing multiple works from a single model sitting. The Cones understood the importance of preserving [this]." The sisters bought whole series, not just one or two pieces.
Several of these are displayed, giving the viewer a sense of how an entire session of artist and model unfolded. "It's almost cinematic to see the works this way," Fisher says. "You're very aware of the passage of time during the sittings."
Even the slightest variations from one print to the other in a series - the turn of a head, the placement of an arm, the curve of a back - can shed fresh light, as much on the model as on Matisse and what caught his eye.
A group of small portraits etched in 1914 reveal the artist refining his approach, creating a kind of candid snapshot of friends with a minimum of lines.
The face of American artist and critic Walter Pach, for example, exudes considerable personality from a print that is just a little over 6-by-2 inches.
