“It was a great idea to bring them together; celebrities of the same generation, of similar virtuosity” - Monroe Wheeler on the Joyce-Matisse Ulysses

George Macy’s decision to commission Henri Matisse to illustrate Ulysses was a bold move for his fledgling Limited Editions Club in 1935. Scandal still swirled around James Joyce’s masterpiece, which had been banned in the United States until 1933. In preliminary conversation with Macy, Matisse confessed to not having read Ulysses; Macy provided him with a French translation. “The very next morning, M. Matisse reported that he had read the book, that he understood its eighteen episodes to be parodies of similar episodes in the Odyssey, that he would like to give point to this fact by making his illustrations actually illustrations of the original episodes in Homer!” (Macy).

Matisse created 26 beautiful full-page illustrations, including six soft-ground etchings – his only use of that particular medium. Macy had planned for 1500 copies of the work to be produced and signed by both author and illustrator. Matisse signed all 1500, but legend has it that when Joyce realized that Matisse had been working from Homer’s Odyssey rather than his novel, he refused to sign any more than the 250 or so that he had already signed – making double-signed copies of this lavish illustrated edition very scarce.

We often carry copies of this collaboration between two of the 20th-century’s finest artists, one of the great modern illustrated books, signed by both author and illustrator. Browse our current inventory.