![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_8492-853x640.jpg\")
Three landscapes by Albert Marquet. Photo by Julie Zigoris<\/p>\n\u201cStep into the salon,\u201d said Janet Bishop, chief curator of San Francisco\u2019s Museum of Modern Art to the crowd of 60-plus gathered for the press preview of \u201cMatisse\u2019s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal.\u201d Here \u201cthe salon\u201d meant the re-creation of the Salon d\u2019automne in Paris, where Henri Matisse\u2019s groundbreaking, colorful painting was first exhibited in 1905.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Graceful ferns arch from pots standing in corners; the walls are lined with maroon wallpaper festooned with gold laurel wreaths inspired by the 1904 Salon d\u2019automne (not a single photograph survives of the 1905 reprise). Wainscotting trims the walls and paintings hang side by side, where \u201cFemme au chapeau\u201d (1905) is reunited with three other Matisse paintings it would have been beside in its grand debut at the Grand Palais. The tinkling piano music of Erik Satie drifts in to complete the mood. In short: It\u2019s a vibe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Three landscapes by Albert Marquet. Photo by Julie Zigoris<\/p>\n
The celebrity canvas occupies a starring role, prominently lit and visible from an adjacent gallery through a cutout in the wall. The subject of the painting, Matisse\u2019s wife Am\u00e9lie Matisse, knew a thing or two about hats. Herself a milliner, she is wearing a hat of her own design. Turn of the century Paris was full of people plying her profession \u2014 some 1,000 milliners were employed in the city\u2019s peak hat days.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The museum has owned the painting since Elise Haas\u2019s bequest in 1991 \u2014 it\u2019s usually on display on the second floor \u2014 but it has moved to the fourth floor to become, for the first time, the centerpiece of an entire exhibition devoted to its context.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of the roughly 30 works in the Haas bequest, Matisse\u2019s masterwork is the only one that can\u2019t travel (it must also always be on display as a stipulation of the bequest). Haas likened what was certainly one of her most favorite paintings to a cocktail; no matter how tired she was, she could look at \u201cFemme au chapeau,\u201d and it would revive her.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFemme au chapeau\u201d has an even longer association with San Francisco. Sarah and Michael Stein, the sister and brother-in-law of famed art collectors Gertrude and Leo Stein, brought the painting here in 1935 \u2014 the same year SFMOMA was founded \u2013\u00a0 before selling it to Haas in 1948.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The painting\u2019s debut in 1905 caused an immediate sensation for its fury of colors, frequently described as child-like. \u201cIt was one of our goals from the outset to bring together as many pictures as we could from Gallery VII or \u2018the cage of wild beasts\u2019 where Matisse and his peers exhibited their works at the Salon d\u2019automne,\u201d Bishop said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Louis Vauxcelles, a French art critic, referred to Matisse and his peer Andr\u00e9 Derain, who appeared in the same show, as \u201cwild beasts\u201d because of their electric palettes. Fauve, or beast in English, stuck and the style became known as Fauvism.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Colorful](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/9.-Derain_Fishing-Boats-684x640.jpg\")
Fishing Boats, Collioure; Andr\u00e9 Derain; 1905;The Philip L. Goodwin Collection;\u00a9 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ ADAGP, Paris.<\/p>\n
Curators drew together Derain as well as other well known artists like Albert Marquet and Pierre Girieud and also lesser-known ones, like Jelka Rosen, the only woman to exhibit in the Salon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The other six galleries composing the exhibition are devoted to various aspects of Matisse\u2019s masterpiece: both immediate and contemporary works that drew from it for inspiration, with examples ranging from the direct gaze and red-capped self-portrait of Jeanne H\u00e9buterne (1917) to Mickalene Thomas\u2019s \u201cQusuquzah, une tres belle Negress 1\u201d (2011), who fittingly became the first African American woman to have a solo exhibition in the Grand Palais \u2014 where the 1905 Salon d\u2019automne was held.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a room devoted to other works from the Haas bequest. \u201cIt\u2019s a show within a show,\u201d Bishop said. \u201cAnd it honors her extraordinary generosity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the most provocative aspects of the exhibition is its engagement with technology. Collaborating with Google\u2019s Arts & Culture Lab, and using Google\u2019s advanced AI video generation model Veo, curators re-create the Grand Palais environment by animating archival photographs and postcards.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another installation, with animation but without the use of AI, resurrects the atmosphere of Leo and Gertrude Stein\u2019s Paris apartment, with images of artworks morphing from black-and-white to color to represent the order in which the art-collecting siblings purchased them. A third interpretive project includes kiosks near the end of the exhibition that allow viewers to peer inside and behind four of Matisse\u2019s paintings, imagining the worlds surrounding them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Erica Gangsei, SFMOMA\u2019s head of interpretive media, said that arts and culture organizations need to be partnering more to develop AI tools; she believes the role of the artist is not simply to provide art to decorate the offices of technology headquarters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so essential for artists to have a seat at the table when these tools are developed,\u201d Gangsei said. \u201cArtists are the original entrepreneurs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Could the integration of AI into the exhibition, which some artists refuse to adopt altogether, cause a scandal like Matisse\u2019s bold use of color did in 1905? It\u2019s hard to imagine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMatisse\u2019s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n