The Sorrows of the King

The Sorrows of the King is a collage using cut out paper shapes by Henri Matisse from 1952. It was made from paper he had coloured with gouache paint and is mounted on canvas. Its size is 292 x 386 cm. It is his final self-portrait. During the early-to-mid-1940s Matisse was in poor health. Eventually by 1950 he stopped painting in favor of his paper cutouts. The Sorrows of the King, is an example of Matisse's final body of works known as the cutouts.