Image: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, New York
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will present 'Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal' from May 16 to September 13, 2026, on Floor 4. The exhibition centers on Henri Matisse’s 1905 portrait 'Femme au chapeau' ('Woman with a Hat'), a painting of his wife, Amélie, whose bold color and loose brushwork stirred controversy when it debuted and helped redirect the course of modern art. SFMOMA describes the show as an opportunity to experience “the moment Matisse used color to break the rules of modern art.”
The museum says the exhibition will restage the painting’s public debut at the 1905 Salon d’Automne, bringing together the greatest number of works from that historic display in more than a century. Alongside Matisse, the installation includes work by André Derain, Albert Marquet, Maurice de Vlaminck, and others who were part of the charged reception that followed the salon presentation. SFMOMA also notes that the exhibition will trace how audiences and artists responded to the painting across generations.
According to the museum, 'Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal' is organized by Janet Bishop, Thomas Weisel Family Chief Curator; Maria Castro, former Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture; and Alison Guh, Assistant Curator of Painting and Sculpture. The exhibition is presented as the exclusive venue for this particular survey, and SFMOMA says it is the only place where visitors can experience the full story and “radical spirit” of 'Femme au chapeau'.
The museum’s accompanying article, 'Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: From Scandal to Icon,' places the painting within SFMOMA’s own history. It notes that 'Femme au chapeau' entered the collection in 1991, but had first been exhibited at the museum in 1936, the year after the institution was founded as the San Francisco Museum of Art. The piece is described as one of the museum’s defining holdings, with a history that also includes the path from the Steins’ collection to SFMOMA through a later bequest from Elise S. Haas.
SFMOMA says the exhibition will feature more than ninety works by more than forty artists, spanning the early 1900s to the present. The installed material is said to include works from the 1905 salon presentation, later responses by artists working today such as Hilary Harkness and Rachel Harrison, and examples of the painting’s influence on Bay Area Figurative artists including Joan Brown, Richard Diebenkorn, and David Park. The museum also identifies a recreation of the Steins’ apartment at 27 rue de Fleurus as part of the exhibition’s broader framing of the painting’s history and reception.
The exhibition page lists a surcharged admission of $10 on weekdays and $12 on weekends and holidays, with free entry for members. SFMOMA says the show is on view through September 13, 2026, and is presented on Floor 4 at 151 Third Street in San Francisco.
