Woman with a Hat

Henri Matisse painted this Woman with a Hat in 1905, exhibiting it at the Salon d'Automne where it helped launch Fauvism. His wife Amélie sits in a conventional portrait pose, but Matisse rendered her face and hat in wild, non-naturalistic colors: green shadows, orange highlights, a multicolored hat.

Critics reacted with outrage. One called the Fauvist room a "cage of wild beasts" (fauves), giving the movement its name. The seemingly arbitrary colors shocked viewers accustomed to naturalistic flesh tones. Yet Matisse insisted he was painting emotional truth rather than optical reality.

Gertrude and Leo Stein purchased the painting directly from the exhibition, an early sign of the family's influential collecting. It remained with the Steins until entering American collections. The painting now belongs to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a landmark of early modern art's liberation of color from description.