A snail's search for the right colour for its shell helps us understand how Matisse refined his technique and how the selection of particular colours and shapes was the key to his art.

Shows how the artist Henri Matisse used bold colors to create strikingly beautiful art. The story follows a colorless snail on a quest to find its own colors. After discovering a number of Matisse's paintings, the snail magically takes on a range of colors from the artworks. Matisse really did create an artwork called, The Snail. He made it in his old age, when he could no longer hold a paintbrush for long. Instead of painting a snail, he made a picture of one by sticking pieces of brightly colored paper onto canvas. The book helps us understand how particular colors make us feel, and appreciate the simplicity and beauty of Matisse's amazing art. Contains biographical information about the artist at the end of story.

A colourful snail asks you to help him look for his favourite painting. Follow his silver trail through a selection of famous modern paintings by an exciting range of modern artists including Pollock, Rothko, Mondrian, Dali, Picasso and Matisse in search of a piece of art that represents him.Paintings reproduced in the book:Pablo Picasso Maya in a Sailor Suit, 1938. MOMABarnett Newman Abraham, 1949. MOMAJackson Pollock Number 20, 1949. Private Collection/James Goodman Gallery, New YorkMark Rothko White Centre, 1950. Private CollectionSalvador Dali The Persistence of Memory, 1931. MOMABen Nicholson 1940-42 (two forms). Southampton City Art Gallery, Hampshire.Henri Matisse The Snail, 1953, Tate ModernHenri Matisse Goldfish (Red Fish), 1911 Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow

A beautiful, colourful and bold picture book that encourages children to notice the small things, think big, and express themselves! Matisse is a young snail who loves to create beautiful drawings with his trail. The trouble is most of the time people are far too busy to even notice them. It's only when a child notices Matisse's beautiful trails that his art is finally celebrated - and they inspire a whole class of children to get creative too!

Follow the adventures of these brightly colored 3D snails as you learn to count to 10.

With unprecedented and unrestricted access to his family correspondence, and other new material in private archives, Spurling documents a lifetime of desperation and self-doubt exacerbated by Matisse's attempts to counteract the violence of the 20th century in paintings.

Pioneering work by the great modernist painter, considered by many to be the father of abstract art and a leader in the movement to free art from traditional bonds. 12 illustrations.