Serving PlatterLe Platane
Le Platane
Adorning the Serving Platter is Henri Matisse’s drawing, Le Platane (The Plane Tree), transforming the everyday into an artful celebration. The decoration is a representation of the full work.
- Pairs with La Sirène & Black Mountain
- For use as functional serveware or as a decorative wall hanging
Le Platane, 1951
brush and India ink, corrections with white gouache on vellum paper with the addition of glued paper at the bottom of the center
© 2025 Succession H. Matisse / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York
About the Artwork
Le Platane (The Plane Tree), a drawing from 1951, is part of a series of seven large-format sheets produced to adorn the dining room walls of publisher Tériade's Villa Natasha. Just as Henri Matisse viewed the plane tree through his apartment window, the form sits perfectly and naturally balanced on the broad canvas of East Fork’s Serving Platter.
About The Collection
When I founded East Fork 15 years ago it was a deliberate choice to leave Matisse out of the name. The legacy of my great-grandfather had followed me around for 20 years and I wanted out. I had a feeling that if I tucked myself away in the woods, something was going to emerge and it would free me.
As East Fork took shape and form, a peculiar thing began to happen: no one had any idea that below the colorful pots there was any connection at all to the stern and famous Frenchman on my father’s side of the family.
And so many years later, I slowly welcomed him back in. First with a vibrant red glaze that nodded to The Red Studio, and culminating now, with the collection before you. Through careful and meticulous collaboration with my brother at Les Héritiers Matisse, the company protecting the integrity of Matisse’s work, we worked to ensure our representations of Matisse’s art were in congruence with the originals, that the blue in the cut-outs was as close to the original gouache as could be, and every splatter of ink in the aquatints was captured. To accompany it, we developed La Sirène, a new blue that’s our own nod to the iconic color we worked so hard to capture in the artwork.
This year much of his work enters the U.S. public domain, and this collection in part came to be as a way of marking that moment, and presenting it on our forms in as true and pure and unadulterated a way as possible.
Celebrate Henri Matisse’s bold, joyful spirit with a pottery collection inspired by his love of color, shape and movement.
