In his late sixties, when ill health first prevented Matisse from painting, he experimented with cutting into painted paper with scissors (gouache decoupée). Necessity had caused Matisse to invent an entirely new medium. Matisse later worked closely with the Parisian Lithographer Fernand Mourlot to create this series of Lithographs depicting his new creations. The two men worked together until Matisse's death in 1954. In recognition of this the Mourlot-Matisse Lithographs have been named 'The Last Works'.