Henri Matisse designed the stained-glass windows for the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence, France.
The Chapel of the Rosary, also called the Matisse Chapel, was created between 1949 and 1951 for the Dominican nuns of Vence. Matisse planned the building’s architecture, interior decoration, liturgical objects, murals, vestments, and stained glass as a unified work rather than treating the windows as an isolated commission.
The windows use three principal colors: yellow, green, and blue. Their simplified forms and clear color fields create an intensely modern counterpart to the chapel’s white walls and black linear drawings. The design reflects Matisse’s late interest in reducing images to essential shapes and rhythms.
Matisse’s chapel is sometimes confused with stained-glass projects by other modern artists, including Marc Chagall and Georges Braque. The Vence commission is specifically associated with Matisse and is one of the best-known examples of modern stained glass integrated into an entire sacred interior.