Exhibition

The Steins Collect

Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde

May 21, 2011–June 3, 2012

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.

Toulouse-Lautrec, woman in red dress in the salon

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

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; photo: The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY; © 2011 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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

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

Paul Czanne, Bathers, 1898-1900; 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: 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.

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Acknowledgements

We deeply appreciate the generous support of our sponsors:

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.