Matisse Study, 36" x 24", acrylic on canvas, 1981. Artist's collection.

This painting came just after the Picasso painting and it is a composition executed in the style of Matisse. It is a variation on the Matisse painting titled "Le Luxe II". My intention was to mimic the style of a Matisse, but today, more than Matisse, I see a Japanese wood block print quality in the composition. I enjoy looking for traces of the Saint Helices composition in these earliest paintings. I can see at least three elements in this composition which could easily be argued as being the germination of formal and conceptual ideas found years later in the Saint Helices series.