The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is hosting a new exhibition titled "Matisse's Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal," which opened on May 16. This exhibition provides an in-depth look at Henri Matisse’s 1905 painting, "Femme au chapeau (Woman with a Hat)," recreating its original debut at the Salon d’Automne. The painting, a portrait of Matisse’s wife Amélie, was met with widespread scandal due to its use of jarring colors and loose brushstrokes, leading critics to label Matisse and his contemporaries as "fauves," or wild beasts.
The exhibition is exclusive to SFMOMA and brings together the largest collection of works from the 1905 Salon in over a century, including pieces by Matisse's contemporaries like André Derain, Albert Marquet, and Maurice de Vlaminck. Beyond its initial controversy, the exhibition traces the painting's significant influence across generations of artists. This includes Bay Area figures such as Joan Brown, Richard Diebenkorn, and David Park, as well as contemporary artists Hilary Harkness and Rachel Harrison, demonstrating how this single canvas reshaped artistic expression.
"Femme au chapeau" has a rich history with SFMOMA, having been exhibited there in 1936, a year after the museum's founding, and officially entering its collection in 1991. The painting's journey to SFMOMA involved the famous Stein family, early patrons of modern art, who initially purchased the controversial work. Leo Stein, despite calling it "the nastiest smear of paint I have ever seen," acquired it with his sister, Gertrude Stein. Later, due to a descendant's gambling debts, the painting was sold and eventually bequeathed to SFMOMA by Mrs. Walter A. Haas. Curators Janet Bishop and Maria Castro highlight the painting's enduring power and its role in shaping discussions around color, form, and expression.
