The first comprehensive survey of the drawings of Henri Matisse ever to be presented in New York will open at The Museum of Modern Art on February 28, 1985. THE DRAWINGS OF HENRI MATISSE features approximately 150 works on paper, nearly a third of which have never been on public view before. The exhibition's many masterpieces, shown in combination with works only recently discovered or in collections inaccessible until now, confirm that the drawings of Henri Matisse are among the greatest in modern art.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Museum is publishing The Drawings of Henri Matisse, the first definitive study of this important aspect of the artist's work. John Golding provided the introduction to the 312-page catalogue; John Elderfield is the author of the text of the book. Magdalena Dabrowski contributed detailed commentaries on all the works in the exhibition, which have been reproduced among the volume's 220 black-and-white illustrations.