The Steins Collect

Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde

The Steins Collect

Henri Matisse, Femme au chapeau (Woman with a Hat), 1905; oil on canvas; Collection SFMOMA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Bequest of Elise S. Haas; © Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The Steins Collect

Pablo Picasso, Head of a Sleeping Woman (Study for Nude with Drapery), 1907; Collection The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Estate of John Hay Whitney, 1983; © 2011 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photo: The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY

The Steins Collect

Henri Matisse, Blue Nude: Memory of Biskra, 1907; The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection; © 2011 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photo: Mitro Hood

The Steins Collect

Henri Matisse, The Girl with Green Eyes, 1908; oil on canvas; Collection SFMOMA, bequest of Harriet Lane Levy; © Succession H. Matisse, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photo: photo: Don Myer

The Steins Collect

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, In the Salon: The Divan, ca. 1892-93; Collection MASP, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, São Paulo, Brazil; photo: João Musa

The Steins Collect

Henri Matisse, Flowers, 1907; oil on cardboard; Collection SFMOMA, bequest of Harriet Lane Levy; © 2011 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The Steins Collect

Paul Cézanne, Bathers, 1898-1900; oil on canvas; The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland; photo: Mitro Hood

The Steins Collect

Pablo Picasso, Head in Three-Quarter View, 1907; gouache and watercolor on paper; Collection SFMOMA, bequest of Elise S. Haas; © 2011 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

May 21 - September 06, 2011

American expatriates in bohemian Paris when the 20th century was young, the Steins — writer Gertrude, her brothers Leo and Michael, and Michael's wife, Sarah — were among the first to recognize the talents of avant-garde painters like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Through their friendship and patronage, they helped spark an artistic revolution. This landmark exhibition draws on collections around the world to reunite the Steins' unparalleled holdings of modern art, bringing together, for the first time in a generation, dozens of works by Matisse, Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and many others. Artworks on view include Matisse's Blue Nude (Baltimore Museum of Art) and Self-Portrait (Statens Museum, Copenhagen), and Picasso's famous portrait Gertrude Stein (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Together with its accompanying mobile tour, The Steins Collect offers a rare, in-depth encounter with the artworks and the extraordinary people behind the birth of modern art.


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    Who were the Steins, and how did they influence modern art? Learn more about this unconventional family and their extraordinary impact on the art of their day.

The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Réunion des Musées Nationaux–Grand Palais, Paris; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Presenting Sponsor
Lead Corporate Sponsor Premier Sponsors Major Sponsor
Charles Schwab Walter & Elise Haas Fund
Major Media Sponsors Generous Promotional Support

Major support is provided by Martha and Bruce Atwater; Gerson and Barbara Bakar; the Helen Diller Family Foundation, a supporting foundation of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund; the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund; the Walter & Elise Haas Fund; and The Bernard Osher Foundation. Generous support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts; Gay-Lynn and Robert Blanding; Jean and James E. Douglas Jr.; Ann and Robert S. Fisher; Gretchen and Howard Leach; Elaine McKeon; Deborah and Kenneth Novack, Thelma and Gilbert Schnitzer, The Schnitzer Novack Foundation; and Lydia and Douglas Shorenstein. Additional support is provided by Dolly and George Chammas, and Concepciόn and Irwin Federman, and the French American Cultural Society. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Generous promotional support is provided by KGO-TV and KQED.