Edward Steichen met Matisse in 1907 and photographed the artist in his studio two years later. This photograph was published in Camera Work, the avant-garde journal that Steichen co-edited with Alfred Stieglitz. It accompanied an interview with Matisse in which he discusses his art and the significance of photography. Steichen’s picture shows Matisse dressed in a smock, wielding a modeling tool as he appears to work on the unfinished clay model of The Serpentine. Matisse first modeled the figure in a conventional manner, as seen here, before radically paring down the legs and torso to create one of his most unconventional works.