Henri Matisse: The Vence Chapel

About Sister Jacques-MarieSoeur Jacques-Marie

Monique Bourgeois was a student nurse in Nice in 1942 when she learned that a painter named Matisse was looking for a nurse. She became his model and several drawings were made as well as four paintings: Monique and The Idol (1942); The Green Dress and Oranges (1943) and Royal Tobacco (1943). In 1943 Matisse moved to the Villa Le Rêve in Vence while Monique Bourgeois was a boarder with the Dominican Sisters of Notre-Dame du Rosaire de Vence; she decided to join this congregation the following year taking the name of Sister Jacques-Marie. The Dominican Sisters of Vence had only a dilapidated garage as a place of worship. In 1947 they decided to build a chapel. In August Sister Jacques-Marie drew a project for a stained glass window representing the Assumption. She showed it to Matisse who encouraged her to have the drawing made into a stained glass window. At the end of 1947 the Dominican friar Rayssiguier visited the Sisters of Vence: he was the architect of their future chapel. He met with Matisse and together they worked out the essential elements of the chapel project. The next day Matisse said to the sister: I will build your chapel and I will take care of the stained glass windows! He often took the advice of Sister Jacques-Marie who remained for him the initiator of the chapel. At Matisse's request she made a plywood model of the chapel according to the brother's plans. She often recounted her life notably in an autobiography and in an American film by Barbara Freed. She died at the functional rehabilitation center Les Embruns in Bidart which she had directed for thirty-seven years. She was buried on October 1 2005 in Vence.