ABSTRACT
This chapter presents of two desires: to share what the author have learned from examining paintings in progress, and to debunk the negative connotations attached to mistakes, both in art and in psychoanalysis. He began to use the camera to register stages of work in progress, he had no idea that Henri Matisse had engaged in the systematic practice of photographing his paintings. He hired a photographer to document his work on The Dance, the famous mural Alfred Barnes had commissioned for his suburban Philadelphia residence, in the early 1930s, but had had his works photographed in the early 1900s as well. Matisse shared his photographs of the various stages of his paintings with friends and collectors. In fact, his Large Reclining Nude was sold to American collector Etta Cone in 1935, who was enthralled by the photographs that Matisse had sent to her.
