Bringing Matisse to America

The Desert: Harmony in Red (1906)

It is considered by many critics to be his finest masterpiece.   

HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954) at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. 

This is the largest collection ever assembled in Minneapolis which exhibits the work of Henri Matisse. Most of the artworks are drawn from the legendary Cone Collection, assembled by two Baltimore sisters–Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Ettthea Cone who had an unrivaled passion for modernism and Matisse.

Spanning six decades of Matisse’s prolific career, with an emphasis on the artist’s earliest works, this special exhibition features 50 works of painting and sculpture, 30 prints, and the artist’s book Jazz. The exhibit runs from February 23-May 18th. Reservations are needed.

To coincide with this exhibit, the MIA March Book Tour is based on the book Miss Etta and Dr. Claribel by Susan Fillion. These tours are on Tuesday and Thursday each week.

What could be more unlikely than this tale of two unmarried sisters from a German-Jewish family in Baltimore amassing one of the major collections of modern art in America? But Etta and Claribel Cone saw the potential of young artists like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso when few people, or institutions, in America even knew they existed.
Etta had fallen in love with art on her first trip to Italy under the exuberant encouragement of Leo Stein, an old family friend from Baltimore. During their travels, including an arduous journey around the world in 1906, the sisters began amassing Japanese prints, antiques, textiles, and jewelry. Buying without professional advice or counsel, trusting their eyes and instincts, they soon were concentrating on the avant-garde, befriending and supporting artists, and building one of the foremost collections of Matisse's work in the world.

For decades, their treasures remained hidden in their Baltimore apartment. Claribel died in 1929, and in 1934 Etta published a catalog of the stunning collection she would ultimately bequeath to The Baltimore Museum of Art in 1949. Only then was the amazing breadth of their vision revealed.

Miss Etta and Dr. Claribel was written by Susan Fillion. She is an artist and museum educator from the Baltimore Museum of Art . Over the years she has introduced audiences of all ages to the Cone Collection and taught drawing from the Matisse collection.

The book is aimed at YA (Young Adult) audience but I found 75 pages was just the right amount as an introduction to the life of Matisse, his works of art, friendships with Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo, Picasso and the Cone sisters. 

I found it fascinating to read how the Cone's friendship with Matisse developed over the years and how much of his art they collected. It was quite interesting also to find out that Matisse around 1906 met Pablo Picasso. The two became lifelong friends as well as rivals and are often compared; one key difference between them is that Matisse drew and painted from nature, while Picasso was much more inclined to work from imagination. The subjects painted most frequently by both artists were women and still life with Matisse more likely to place his figures in fully realised interiors.

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Matisse's painting, "Woman with a Hat," caused great controversy at the time for its liberal use of color. It depicts Matisse's wife Amelie.