The winner of the last Whitbread Prize is the concluding volume of a two-part biography of Henri Matisse, an extended (512 pages, with nearly 200 illustrations, including 24 color plates) and intelligent portrait of one of the most important modern artists. A bold innovator plagued by doubts, Matisse distilled in his work more creative energy, insights, and ideas than bewildered contemporaries could appreciate. But what good luck to have for his first biographer a kindred spirit capable of keeping up with his most daring aesthetic discoveries. Fifteen years in the making, this is a book for the ages.