Drawing Painting Of Denise Arokas Last Muse Of Pentre Henri Matisse. Born in Avignon (Vaucluse) on March 2, 1932, Denise Arokas has an atypical life course. Raised with her older brother and sister by hosier parents, Denise Arokas narrowly escaped deportation while her parents and her brother were arrested and then transferred to Auschwitz in 1943. Later, like many young girls of the time who taste the magazines Elle or Vogue, she will be attracted by the world of fashion and Parisian life. She will take courses at the Red Cross in Paris to become a nurse and will do internships in hospitals while dreaming of becoming a model maker and doing fashion designs. On the recommendation of Lydia Delectorskaya, she was hired between 1951 and 1952 to be a companion to the painter Henri Matisse, who at the time was 81 years old. She will become one of his muses and certainly one of his last models. In 1953, in contact with the Parisian world, she became a model for the greatest couturiers. Known as Rebecca, she will work with Jean Patou, Balenciaga and even Courrèges. At Matisse, she will continue to draw and produce sketches of nudes, watercolors and charcoals. She has already separated in 2001 from several drawings that Matisse had made of her, then in 2015 from fashion drawings that she had drawn herself, during auctions.