Henri Matisse (1869–1954) was a French painter, sculptor, printmaker and draftsman whose radical use of color made him one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Initially trained in law, Matisse began studying art in his early 20s. In the first decade of the 1900s, he became a leader of Fauvism, a short-lived but influential movement characterized by vivid, non-naturalistic color and energetic brushwork. Throughout his career, Matisse explored relationships among color, line, pattern and space in paintings of figures, interiors, still lifes and landscapes. His work increasingly emphasized simplified forms and flattened areas of color, while decorative patterns often blurred distinctions between figures and their surroundings. After serious illness and surgery in 1941 restricted his mobility, Matisse developed his celebrated paper cut-outs, cutting shapes from sheets of paper painted with gouache and arranging them into compositions that united drawing and color. These late works, including the Blue Nudes and Jazz, transformed physical limitations into a radically new approach to art making and became among the most recognizable works of his career.