“A sculpture must invite us to handle it as an object...the smaller the bit of sculpture, the more the essentials of form must exist.” Matisse’s comments from 1908 seem to anticipate Small Thin Torso, created many years later in 1929. Like a worn and polished beach pebble, it appeals to our sense of touch, and despite its three-inch height, projects great visual presence. This is no accident; Matisse was highly aware that sculpture required a clear silhouette in order to “carry from a distance.” Small Thin Torso represents a partial figure, a fragment, just like the Greco-Roman torso that Matisse owned and used as inspiration. Viewed from the back, Small Thin Torso reveals a formal kinship with Matisse’s The Back IV, completed the following year, even though that monumental work is 25 times taller. In both sculptures, the spines become almost absolutely vertical autonomous formal elements. Katy Rothkopf, Senior Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, Rotation, 1/21/2022