The Steins, Matisse, and the Bay Area

The Steins Collect exhibition curator Bishop explores how Sarah and Michael Stein transformed San Francisco’s appreciation for modern art. American expatriates living in Paris, the couple made a hasty trip back to San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake to check on their property. They packed three Matisse paintings in their luggage — the first of the artist’s works to be seen in America. When the couple returned to the Bay Area for good in 1935, they brought their modern art collection with them, and by the next year Matisse’s Woman with a Hat and other important paintings were publicly shown in the U.S. for the first time at SFMOMA.