Henri Matisse, Arbre en Fleur, 155.00 x 187.00 cm (#1);
Joan Mirò, El Sol, 122.00 x 178.00 cm (#1);
Alexander Calder, A Piece of my Workshop, 183.00 x 292.00 cm;
Roberto Sebastian Antonio Matta, Sun Dice, 178.00 x 122.00 cm.

Katzenbach & Warren inc. Publisher, from an original edition of 200 copies never finished. Matisse and Mirò have on the front, respectively in the lower left and lower right, the MS (Mural Scroll) stamp and the edition (#1). The absence of an indication of the edition on the other two works suggests that they may be proofs.
According to the opinion of Catherine C. Bock-Weiss in “Henri Matisse: A Guide to Research. New York, Routledge, 2012, pp. 334-335” only 30 copies were printed. Among the known works, those present at the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró in Mallorca (#14), at the Whitney Museum in New York (#19) (https://whitney.org/collection/works/7991) and at the Moma in New York (#5) (https://www.moma.org/collection/works/67005)
Provenance: Eredi Matta, Rome. The four works are archived in the inventory of the succession of Angela Faranda, the artist's wife, under numbers 8, 9, 10 and 11. There are also two photos taken between 1950 and 1954, in the living room of Matta's house in Via Trasone in Rome, while Angela Faranda poses in front of Matisse and Mirò.
Publications: James Thrall Soby, Calder, Henri Matisse, Miro, Matta: silkscreen mural-scrolls from original designs, in “Arts & Architecture”, 66 April 1949, pp. 26-28; Catherine C. Bock-Weiss, Henri Matisse: A Guide to Research. New York, Routledge, 2012, pp. 334-335; Pepe Carmel, Design Review; When Artwork Has a Sticky Back, in “The New York Times,” July 28, 1995; Núria Montclús Carazo, El primer encuentro: Roma, 1949-1954 , in Ead., Öyvind Fahlström y Roberto Matta, 1949-1964, Máster en Estudios Avanzados en Historia el arte, Universidad de Barcelona, ​​2010, p. 17; Miró. Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró in Mallorca. Lundwerg Publishers: Barcelona, ​​2005

The four works presented here were kept for over sixty years in an attic in Rome by the recently deceased Angela Faranda, who had married Matta in 1950. The story of the Mural Scrolls is closely linked to Matta's biography. During his New York experience Matta - who has always been very sensitive to the applied aspects of art - was at the center of an important attempt to create avant-garde design. In 1948 the artist - who had not only the experience of an architect behind him but also the activity of furniture designer during his youth in Chile - became the art director of the Mural Scrolls, the large serigraphs that were to be produced by a leading company in the wallpaper sector, the American Katzenbach & Warren. His was the idea of ​​this project for which an editorial board was formed which included, with Matta himself, also Allen Porter of the Museum of Modern Art, the gallerist Pierre Matisse and William E. Katzenbach, president of the firm Katzenbach & Warren. It was an avant-garde operation in perfect harmony with that modern world characterized by serial reproduction, where the product of creativity loses its unique character to be within everyone's reach, as Walter Benjamin wrote in his essay L'opera d' art in the age of its technical reproducibility. In 1949, an advertising portfolio entitled Calder Matisse Matta Miro: Mural Scrolls was created in New York, which was to serve to obtain reservations for the definitive works. The publication, which had an attractive cover and a very modern plastic spiral binding, was introduced by an authoritative signature, that of James Thrall Soby, critic and collector, trustee and benefactor of the Museum of Modern Art. It contained the reproductions in color miniatures of the works that should have been printed on canvas in large format, with a circulation of two hundred copies, and offered for sale at $360 each: Alexander Calder, A Piece of my Workshop, 1949, 183 x 290 cm ; Henri Matisse, Arbre en Fleur, 1949, 155 x 185 cm; Roberto Sebastian Matta, Sun Dice, 1949, 173 x 265 cm; Joan Miró, El Sol, 1949, 122 x 178 cm. Also in the portfolio we read that the Mural Scrolls could be glued directly to the walls like wallpaper, or hung like the scrolls of Chinese paintings. However, the scrolls were not wallpaper, but works of art reproduced in extra large format. Matta, director of the entire operation, commented on the serigraphs in his portfolio with these words: «One should wear a Mural-Scroll like a woman wears a dress. It is to hang oneself, in full colour, upon the wall, as a sunny day. Remove the Scroll, and you denude yourself, thus every wall hides a love». The aim of the initiative was to create an avant-garde decoration directly controlled by the author and therefore removed from the risk of possible manipulation. James Thrall Soby dedicated an article entitled Calder, Henri Matisse, Miro, Matta: silkscreen mural-scrolls from original design to this undertaking, published in the journal “Arts & Architecture” in April 1949. Soby justified this project in the interest of a high quality interior design and affordable price. The article was illustrated with the works of the artists. However, it seems that the project has encountered serious impediments. It probably foundered in the bud. In the exhibition Kitsch to Corbusier: Wallpapers From the 1950's, at the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum in Manhattan, in 1995, only the miniature essays from the advertising portfolio were exhibited, but not the prints commissioned by Katzenbach & Warren from Calder, Matisse, Matta and Miró. One certain fact is that the art director Matta went through a critical moment right then which led him to leave New York. The story is known. Due to behavior deemed inappropriate, he was expelled from the Surrealist group by Breton. Isolated and in crisis, he arrived in Italy in 1949, settling in Rome, where he would remain until 1954. In 1950 he married Angela Faranda, a film actress with whom he had settled into an apartment in via di Trasone 49 where the four huge serigraphs on canvas, the Mural Scrolls. These serigraphs also struck the young Öyvind Fahlström, the Swedish artist, born in Brazil, who stayed in Rome after the war, where he frequented Matta. Recalling the first meeting with Matta in the house in via di Trasone, Fahlström, in an article published later, focused precisely on this living room decorated with the Mural Scrolls. «En esa gran habitación donde todo era tranquilidad y relax, paredes blancas, y cuadros de Matisse, aderezaban los bajos muebles para relajarse» [In this large room where everything was tranquility and relaxation, white walls, and paintings by Matisse, were placed low furniture for lounging].