HENRI MATISSE

(1869-1954)

Nu (femme) debout, also titled Nu près du paravent

Footnotes

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Georges Matisse.

Please note this work has been requested for inclusion in the landmark exhibition Matisse: Life & Spirit, Masterpieces from the Centre Pompidou, Paris at the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, Australia, 20 November 2021 – 13 March 2022.

Provenance
Michael & Sarah Stein Collection, Paris and San Francisco (acquired directly from the artist through Galerie Druet by 28 April 1906, until at least 1942).
James Vigeveno Gallery, Los Angeles (probably acquired from the above in the 1940s).
Robert Ardrey & Helen Johnson Ardrey Collection, Oklahoma (acquired from the above in May 1950, until circa 1973-1974).
Galerie Yoshii, Tokyo (acquired circa 1973-1974).
Shoji Uehara Collection, Japan (acquired from the above on 27 December 1974).
Galerie Yoshii, Tokyo (acquired from the above in 1977).
Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 7 December 1977, lot 28.
Private collection, South Africa (acquired at the above sale).
Thence by descent to the present owner.

Exhibited
Paris, Galerie Druet, Henri Matisse, 19 March - 7 April 1906, no. 8.
Los Angeles, University of California, Years of Ferment, The Birth of Twentieth Century Art 1886-1914, 24 January – 7 March 1965, no. 34 (later travelled to San Francisco and Cleveland; dated 1904-1905).
Paris, Grand Palais, Henri Matisse, Exposition du Centenaire, 21 April - 21 September 1970, no. 80.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Four Americans in Paris, The Collection of Gertrude Stein and her Family, December 1970, no. 15 (later travelled to San Francisco).
Tokyo, Galeries Seibu, Exposition les fauves, 15 August - 24 September 1974 (later travelled to Kanazawa).
Dalhousie, Nova Scotia, Dalhousie Art Gallery, Aspects of 19th and 20th Century European Art, Part I: Henri Matisse (1869-1954), 23 October 1980 – 4 January 1981.

Literature
A.H. Barr Jr., Matisse, His Art and His Public, New York, 1951, p. 82 (illustrated p. 20).
L.M. Golson, 'The Michael Steins of San Francisco: Art Patrons and Collectors', in Four Americans in Paris, The Collections of Gertrude Stein and her Family, exh. cat., New York, 1970, no. 15, p. 43 (illustrated pp. 41, 45 & 117).
M. Luzi & M. Carra, L'opera di Matisse, dalla rivolta 'fauve' all'intimismo 1904-1928, Milan, 1971, no. 83 (illustrated p. 88).
G-P. & M. Dauberville, Matisse, Vol. I, Paris, 1995, no. 64 (illustrated p. 399).
H. Spurling, The Unknown Matisse, A Life of Henri Matisse, Vol. I: 1869-1908, London, 1998, pp. 348 & 352 (illustrated pp. 347 & 383).
J.C. Bishop, C. Debray & R.A. Rabinow (eds.), The Steins Collect, Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant-Garde, exh. cat., San Francisco, 2011, no. 112, pp. 133 & 148n15 (illustrated pp. 381, 382, 385, 387 & 411).
S. Steinberg, 'Sarah Stein: The Woman Who Brought Matisse to San Francisco', in American Imago, Vol. 68, no. 3, Fall 2011, pp. 521 & 526 (titled 'Nude Woman with Red Hair' and 'Woman with Red Hair').

Nu (femme) debout, also titled Nu près du paravent dates from the pinnacle of Henri Matisse's Fauvist period when his unbridled use of colour and handling of pigment was at its most radical and liberated. With an intensity and boldness of palette almost unparalleled in this first Fauve phase of Matisse's oeuvre, Nu (femme) debout stands as a quintessential example of Fauvism, while the manner of execution and figurative subject reveal the artist's tantalising first steps towards his celebrated decorative style. Acquired shortly after completion by arguably the most significant patrons and collectors of his early career, Michael and Sarah Stein, the present work is distinguished by exceptional provenance and remains a rare example of a figurative Fauvist work by Matisse not already housed in a museum collection. Nu (femme) debout also carries the important epitaph of being one of the first three works by Matisse to have ever been seen in America, and there is no doubt that the presentation of this work, along with the astounding promotional efforts of Sarah Stein, helped to secure Matisse's name in the United States, and beyond, as synonymous with the development of modern art in the twentieth century.

Nu (femme) debout was painted in the immediate aftermath of the infamous Salon d'Automne of October 1905, the exhibition which appalled the French public and birthed the Fauvist movement. The site of the scandal was the ultimate showcase for modern and contemporary art with room VII, a central room at the Grand Palais, as the arena of the spectacle. Gracing the walls were the radically vibrant paintings that Matisse and André Derain had created in Collioure earlier that summer, along with paintings of a similarly clamorous palette by artists such as Henri Manguin, Albert Marquet, Maurice de Vlaminck and Georges Rouault. Contemporary art critic Louis Vauxcelles referred to the room as the 'cage of wild beasts' ('cage aux fauves'), and thus this cohort acquired its sobriquet.

Visitors to the exhibition were aghast at the 'savage' presentation within Salle VII. The paintings employed a hitherto unseen style of execution and defied every prevailing artistic convention. Colour was freed from its mimetic function and applied unfettered, as if directly from the tube, with liberal, even sketchy brushwork. The effect was, as Vauxcelles recorded, 'an orgy of pure tones'. Amongst the various landscapes of Collioure, the painting which caused the greatest uproar was Matisse's portrait of his wife, Amélie - the now iconic Femme au chapeau, which today resides in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The inclusion of this work within the exhibition not only secured Matisse's position as the leader of the Parisian avant-garde but crucially marked the beginning of a profound relationship between him and the most significant friends and patrons of his early career, the Steins.

Leo, Gertrude, Michael and Sarah Stein all attended the vernissage along with, now fabled collectors, Claribel and sister Etta Cone who were friends of Gertrude's and Leo's from Baltimore. The Americans were unique in their quiet admiration for Femme au chapeau. Therese Jelenko, who accompanied the Steins on their visit to the Salon, recalled seeing 'Frenchmen doubled up with laughter before it, and Sarah saying 'it's superb' while Mike couldn't tear himself away' (Four Americans in Paris, The Collections of Gertrude Stein and her Family, exh. cat., New York, 1970, p. 42). Were it not for the pioneering discernment of the family, Matisse would have considered the Salon d'Automne to have been an unmitigated failure. However, in the event, Sarah and her brother-in-law Leo decided to purchase the ground-breaking work for the family. The painting initially resided with Leo and Gertrude before latterly forming part of Michael and Sarah's collection. Up until this moment Matisse had, by and large, been overlooked or dismissed by the French, but the acquisition of Femme au chapeau was to alter the course of Matisse's fortunes, whereby his subsequent friendship with the Steins, most importantly Sarah Stein, not only transformed his financial circumstances, but secured his recognition and legacy internationally. As Matisse's grandson, Claude Duthuit, noted, 'Without the Americans...he would have starved' (Duthuit quoted in J. Bishop, 'Sarah and Michael Stein in America' in The Steins Collect, Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant-Garde, exh. cat, San Francisco, 2011, p. 129).

After the excitement of the Salon d'Automne in 1905, Leo Stein was personally introduced to Matisse via Henri Manguin, and in January 1906 Etta Cone and Sarah Stein visited Matisse's studio. It was Sarah Stein who was unquestionably responsible for the purchase of the present work. Painted in late 1905 – early 1906, Nu (femme) debout has been identified by the Matisse family as Michael and Sarah's 'first purchase' and was exhibited in Matisse's second one-man show at the Galerie Druet which opened on 19 March 1906. Sarah and Michael acquired the work from the exhibition in which 53 paintings were shown. It was to mark the first of many subsequent additions to their collection from Matisse's Fauvist and early decorative period where, in the words of Hilary Spurling, Sarah 'delighted in the side of Matisse that struck others as wildest and most barbaric. Her instinct, especially in the radical discoveries and experiments of 1906-1907, was always for the riskiest, least reassuring canvases' (H. Spurling, The Unknown Matisse, A Life of Henri Matisse, Vol. I: 1869–1908, London, 1998, p. 348).

Nu (femme) debout employs the same high-keyed palette as Femme au chapeau and is similarly modelled through richly contrasted complementary pigments. The style and execution of the work retains the intensity and freedom with which Derain and Matisse released themselves from the technical discipline of Paul Signac's Neo-Impressionism in Collioure, to give full rein to their brushes and the potential of colour. In accordance with the Collioure canvases, Matisse here primes with white and leaves slivers of canvas untouched to prompt surface rhythms between pigments and enhance the dazzling tonal effect. While executed with vigour and a loaded brush, Matisse carefully builds the composition through a succession of abutting complementary colours: scarlet and Veronese green, royal blue and orange, mauves and egg yolk yellow. He preserves fleshy pinks to denote the model's form but conveys shadow exclusively through colour - a technique discovered whilst in the clear, intense light of the South of France during the summer of 1905 where, as Derain reported to his friend Maurice de Vlaminck, 'Not only light, but shadow is a world full of colours' (Derain quoted in H. Widauer & C. Grammont, (eds.), Matisse and the Fauves, exh. cat., Vienna, 2013, p. 60).

Matisse renders the screen behind the figure by only the merest of gestures. The converging diagonals to the lower right suggest the concertinaed point of a screen with a further axis intersecting the model's calves to indicate receding depth and perspective. Yet the background above the figure's waist has been completely de-materialized into a cascade of vivid colour and gestural impastoed brushstrokes, creating a sense of abstract, intangible space. This deliberate manifestation of spatial ambiguity, along with the figurative choice of subject, shows Matisse at a critical moment of transition as he began to take his first steps into a new expressive mode of painting or, as Matisse termed it: Decorative art.

From early 1906 Matisse and Derain were concerned with taking Fauvism to a more conceptual phase. 'Expression is not the end but the means' wrote Derain in a letter to Matisse, 'The true idea is the way in which the means are made use of' (H. Widauer & C. Grammont, (eds.), ibid, p. 276). This new direction manifested itself in experiments which eschewed pure landscape in favour of compositions which depicted figures, a register more traditionally linked to the painting of ideas. 'What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape, but the human figure' Matisse would later state in his seminal 1908 Notes d'un peintre, 'It is that which best permits me to express my almost religious awe towards life' (Matisse quoted in S. Whitfield, Fauvism, London, 1991, p. 147).

Painted contemporaneously with the present work in the winter of 1905-1906 was the sensational Le Bonheur de vivre. This monumental, figurative painting was initially purchased by Leo Stein but now resides in the celebrated Barnes Collection, Philadelphia. The oil sketch was acquired by Michael and Sarah Stein, very possibly from the same 1906 Galerie Druet exhibition in which Nu (femme) debout was purchased and can be seen hanging alongside that very work in their rue de Madame apartment in the winter of 1907. Le Bonheur de vivre was the single submission by Matisse for the 1906 Salon des Indépendants which opened just a day after the vernissage at Galerie Druet and heralded a new path for Matisse into the world of ideas and expression. In the arcadian scene populated by nudes in differing poses and groupings, Matisse sought to express a utopian, pre-existential state removed from time and space. Yet whilst drawing upon the pastoral and classical themes of French monumental painting, he set about modernising the vision through distinctly radical means. 'Expression, for me' Matisse would later clarify 'does not reside in passion bursting from a human face or manifested by violent movement. The entire arrangement of the picture is expressive: the place occupied by the figures, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, all of that has its share. Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner the diverse elements at the painter's command to express his feelings' (Matisse quoted in H. Widauer & C. Grammont, (eds.), op. cit., p. 176).

Critical to this new mode of expression was the discovery of African Sculpture which described the human body in a way totally at odds with the formal language of Western Art. Matisse recalled first seeing statues of African origin in early–mid 1906: 'I often used to pass through the rue de Rennes in front of a curio shop called Le Père Sauvage, and I saw a variety of things in the display case. There was a whole corner of little wooden statues of Negro origin. I was astonished to see how they were conceived from the point of view of sculptural language; how close it was to the Egyptians. That is to say that compared to European sculpture, which always took its point of departure from musculature and started from the description of the object, these Negro statues were made in terms of their material, according to invented planes and proportions' (Matisse quoted in S. Whitfield, op. cit., p. 161).

With its angular contours, roughly modelled face and exaggerated forms, the figure of Nu (femme) debout appears to owe some debt to the formal qualities that Matisse was newly appreciating in carved African figures. Meanwhile, the plasticity of application, apparent in the energetic brushstrokes and impastoed surface, gestures towards a dialogue with the sculptural medium. A contemporaneous nude, La Gitane, in the collection of the Centre Pompidou and also owned by Michael and Sarah Stein, bears the same expressive and distorted handling, 'there is a physical involvement with the paint which is comparable to sculptor's involvement with his clay' (S. Whitfield, op. cit., p. 174). However, while the expressiveness of La Gitane borders on the chaotic, Nu (femme) debout retains a solidity and clarity of form that Matisse would develop in subsequent nudes.

The alarmed reception that Nu (femme) debout received on being presented to the American public as one of the first three Matisses to ever have been seen stateside, is testament to its revolutionary impact. Annette Rosenshine recounted her experience of viewing the work during a visit to Sarah and Michael Stein's with Alice Toklas (future life partner of Gertrude Stein) after their brief return to San Francisco following the earthquake of 1906, 'Mrs Stein received me graciously and seemed pleased to introduce us to French art and show the three paintings she had brought with her... [one] picture showed a fat distorted little nude who struck me as a gross un-esthetic monster, a far cry from the nude paintings in our life class' (Rosenshine quoted in J. Bishop, op. cit., p. 133). One of the other three works which Sarah Stein brought to America, described at the time as 'a demented caricature', was the famous portrait of Madame Matisse known as La Raie Verte, 'The Green Stripe', now located at the Statens Musuem for Kunst in Copenhagen.

In the Spring of 1906 Matisse met the precocious younger Picasso for the first time. Gertrude Stein would later confirm that Matisse had introduced Picasso to African sculpture in late 1906 during a dinner with the Steins. Picasso's appropriation of indigenous art would come to fruition in his startling 1907 masterpiece Les Demoiselles d'Avignon – a work arguably inspired by Le Bonheur de vivre, where he made overt references to Iberian sculpture and African masks. Matisse, by contrast, was less explicit, seeking to simplify form and accentuate features akin to the inventiveness he saw in the planes and proportions of African figures. 'Suppose I want to paint a woman's body' he would later write in Notes d'un peintre, 'First of all I imbue it with grace and charm but I know I must do something more. I will condense the meaning of the body by seeking it's essential lines.' This process of refinement would find full expression in works such as the 1907 Nu debout (Tate Modern), and Nu Bleu (Souvenir de Biskra) (Baltimore Museum of Art).

Identifiable from a succession of photographs taken of Michael and Sarah Stein's home on rue Madame, Paris, 1908–1914, Nu (femme) debout can be seen in a variety of Salon-style hangs which reveal the sheer breadth and quality of paintings by Matisse within their collection, nearly all of which now reside in museum collections: Autoportrait dans un T-shirt rayé (Tate Modern), La coiffure (Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart), Nature Morte Bleue (The Barnes Collection). Michael and Sarah Stein's extraordinary foresight and instinct for uncovering masterpieces at their inception resulted in an unparalleled collection of well over 40 iconic works by the artist. As Alfred Barr Jr., former Director of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, notes, 'The Michael Stein's were to surpass Leo [Stein] and in fact everyone else but Sergei Shchukin as Matisse collectors during the period before World War I' (A.H. Barr, Jr., Matisse, His Art and His Public, London, 1975, p. 57).

As a mark of their fondness for Nu (femme) debout, Michael and Sarah Stein kept the painting in their collection for over four decades. The work remained with them following their permanent return to California in 1935 and the death of Michael in 1938, but it is likely that Sarah was forced to disperse the collection (including the present work) in the mid–late 1940s in order to provide financial assistance to her grandson. Nu (femme) debout remains a rare memento of one of the greatest collections of modern art in the twentieth century and bears witness to Sarah Stein's remarkable prescience in perceiving the enduring significance of Matisse's Fauvism – not only for herself, but throughout the entire arc of art history. Speaking later to her friend Stanley Steinberg, Sarah cited Matisse's early Fauve work as 'a revelation to her of what is human. His intensity and portrayal of the essence of his vision profoundly moved her. She said she felt transformed by these works and that they made her more in touch with her own humanity' (S. Steinberg, 'Sarah Stein: The Woman Who Brought Matisse to San Francisco, A Memoir: Learning about Art and the Art of Psychoanalysis' in American Imago, Vol. 68, no. 3, Fall 2011, p. 532).


'She knows more about my paintings than I do' - Henri Matisse speaking of Sarah Stein

The Stein siblings were born in Pennsylvania to wealthy Jewish parents Daniel and Amelia Stein and enjoyed a childhood in Vienna and Paris before the family settled in California. The death of his parents at a young age forced the eldest son Michael to become head of the family at not quite 26, taking over his father's business affairs as head of the Omnibus Railway and Cable Company in San Francisco and becoming guardian to his younger siblings.

Michael married the vivacious Sarah Samuels in 1893, the daughter of a successful German merchant, whilst his younger brother Leo left Harvard Law School to travel to Europe in the hopes of becoming an artist. Arriving in Paris in early 1903, he was joined by his younger sister Gertrude in autumn 1903, herself an aspiring writer. The siblings rented the now renowned apartment at 27 rue de Fleurus, which would go onto become effectively the first museum of modern art. Inspired by the artistic circles in which Gertrude and Leo now immersed themselves, Michael sold the family business in the States and moved to Paris with Sarah and their young son Allan in January 1904. Moving into 58 rue Madame, Michael and Sarah visited the Louvre almost daily – originally planning to stay in France for just a year, the couple would remain there for over 30 years.

Together, the four Steins would go on to build the world's foremost collection of modern art with astonishing speed. Starting with the purchase of Cézanne and Renoir lithographs, Leo and Gertrude quickly overspent their brother's monthly stipend and collected hundreds of works by avant-garde artists such as Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse and Picasso. The siblings met Picasso in 1905, who befriended Gertrude and asked her to pose for him frequently, whilst also painting a portrait of Michael and Sarah's son in 1906. Impressive examples from Picasso's Rose and Blue Periods hung on the walls of the rue de Fleurus atelier, admired by the frequent visitors to the Steins' weekly open house. It was at one of Gertrude's salons in 1906 that Matisse and Picasso met each other for the first time, and it was known for Leo to have lunch with Matisse and dinner with Picasso on the same day whilst Sarah's neighbour was Gabriele Münter, the artist and companion of Kandinsky, whose studio Sarah also visited.

Introduced to these artists through Leo and Gertrude, Michael and Sarah were quick to embrace modern art, buying works by Gauguin, Picasso, Manguin, Vallotton and of course Matisse: a 1907 photograph taken in their rue Madame apartment shows the impressive scope of their collection, where 'a dazzling array of their rapidly growing collection of modern paintings was ranged along the walls' (Exh. cat., Four Americans in Paris, The Collections of Gertrude Stein and her Family, New York, pp. 38-40). Shown lower centre, above the head of Allan, is the present work, Nu (femme) debout.

Matisse was first brought to Sarah and Michael's attention by the 1905 Salon d'Automne, the infamous show which inspired the 'Fauves' moniker. There, the four Steins saw the expressive works of Vlaminck, Derain and Matisse, whose Femme au chapeau, painted with bold unnaturalistic colours, was the talk of the town: 'people came to the gallery to jeer and shout about this painting. It was a 'cause celebre'. Sarah said she convinced Michael to buy the painting on the spot, and he felt they could afford the purchase. Leo Stein, who later became an outstanding collector and connoisseur of early 20th Century art, at first jeered at the Woman with a Hat, calling it an ugly smear, but later admired it' (S. Steinberg, 'Sarah Stein: The Woman Who Brought Matisse to San Francisco, A Memoir: Learning about Art and the Art of Psychoanalysis' in American Imago, Vol. 68, no. 3, Fall 2011, p. 534). The details of the sale became a subject of disagreement amongst the family however, with Leo claiming 'I had bought my first Matisse' (A.H. Barr Jr., Matisse, His Art and His Public, London, 1975, p. 57) and Sarah that 'Michael and I bought it – I had immediately recognized the genius of this man' (S. Steinberg, op. cit., p. 535).

This marked the start of what would prove to be a lifelong relationship between the Michael Steins and Matisse, who favoured them over the more flamboyant Leo and Gertrude: 'Madame Michael Stein, whom Gertrude Stein neglects to mention, was the really intelligently sensitive member of her family' (Matisse quoted in Exh. cat, op. cit., p. 38). A close friendship developed, with the couple holidaying with the artist and supporting the opening of his art school on the rue de Sèvres. Their patronage continued with the purchase of several studies for Matisse's celebrated Le Bonheur de vivre (1905-1906) – the finished work was bought by Leo Stein, but Michael and Sarah revealed an interest in the development of the composition by acquiring the sketch for Le Bonheur de vivre, 1905: 'one of Sarah Stein's favourites' (Exh. cat., op. cit., p. 42). Another jewel in their collection came with the purchase of Madame Matisse (La Raie Verte) in 1906 – such was their admiration for this work that it, 'the equally bold little Nude before a Screen [the present work], and a third, unidentified painting were taken by the Steins to San Francisco when they returned there for a few months after the 1906 earthquake and fire. These were the first works by Matisse to be seen in America, and the shocked reactions of her friends back home were humorously reported by Sarah Stein in a letter to Gertrude' (Exh. cat, op. cit., p. 43). Despite the initial reaction, one of Sarah's friends, George Of, an artist himself, was so impressed that he asked Sarah to procure him his own Matisse – he bought Nu dans la forêt (circa 1905) sight unseen, thereby becoming the first Matisse collector based in the US. Back in Paris, the Stein's houseguest, Etta Cone, bought the Poterie jaune de Provence, the first of 66 Matisse paintings in the Cone Collection now in the Baltimore Museum.

The Steins went on to lend two of their Matisses to the Armory Show in New York in 1913 (Le Madras rouge and Le coiffure), exposing America to his modernist canvases and building support for the artist stateside. Their own collection was badly affected by the First World War however: having agreed to loan 19 of their Matisses for his one-man show in Germany in 1914, the paintings were expropriated and bought by a German dealer at low prices, ultimately never to be recovered. Despite this loss, the Steins went on to create a showcase home for their remaining collection, commissioning Le Corbusier to build the Villa Stein (Les Terrasses) in 1927 at Garches, on the outskirts of Paris. At the time, he was a little-known architect whose work Michael admired, whilst Sarah admitted finding the villa a little drafty, filling it with oriental rugs and Italian Renaissance furniture. The house attracted international visitors such as Piet Mondrian and El Lissitzky, and Matisse first met Le Corbusier here – the architect was said not be too keen on the artist 'until he overheard Matisse remark to his host, 'This young man has talent'. Thereafter Le Corbusier referred to Matisse as 'a great master'' (A.B. Saarinen, 'The Steins in Paris' in The American Scholar, Vol. 27, no. 4, Autumn 1958, p. 446).

Sarah and Michael Stein moved back to California in 1935 after more than thirty years in Paris. The morning they set sail, 6 July, Sarah wrote to Matisse thanking him for his friendship and the joy his work brought her – his reply reveals the depth of their understanding: 'I had hoped...I could have spoken again with you of the past, to tell you how vivid my memories remain of my ardent years of work...during which you and Mr. Stein supported me so much, with tireless devotion – and since, of the pleasure that I had in showing you my work... how much I valued your wise judgements, guided by your exceptional sensibility, and full knowledge of the road I have travelled... True friends are so rare that it is painful to see them move away' (J. Bishop, 'Sarah and Michael Stein, Matisse, and America' in The Steins Collect, Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant-Garde, exh. cat., San Francisco, 2011, p. 129).

Michael died in 1938 but Sarah's patronage of Matisse would continue, as she made her Palo Alto home open to anyone interested in the artist. Stanley Steinberg, on his first visit to Sarah Stein's home in 1942, recalled being led past canvases by Matisse, Cézanne and Picasso: 'As she walked with me through the collection, Sarah said that she never saw herself as Matisse had painted her – she felt he made her much more elegant than she saw herself. It made her look too much like a French woman, she said, not an American, whereas Michael's portrait by Matisse she admired without qualifications. She felt Matisse had captured the inner life of her husband, his seriousness, his high intellect and integrity' (S. Steinberg, op. cit., p. 521).

Sarah was forced financially to gradually disperse her collection before her death in 1953 and chose to burn most of her letters from Matisse to prevent what she feared would be a misunderstanding over their relationship. In 1955 a Sarah and Michael Stein Memorial Collection was established at the San Francisco Museum of Art by collectors Elise Haas and Nathan Cummings, who together purchased the Matisse portraits of Michael and Sarah Stein, thus preserving the artist's only example of double portraiture. Through her friendship with Sarah Stein, Elise acquired the Fauve study for Le Bonheur de vivre and what now forms the jewel of the SFMOMA collection, Femme au chapeau.

With the remainder of the Michael and Sarah Stein collection now widely scattered, the emergence of Nu (femme) debout onto the auction market marks an incredible opportunity to own a work so personally intertwined with the artist and his patronage by the formidable Stein family, collectors who 'altered the whole atmosphere of modern art' (A.B. Saarinen, op. cit., p. 448).

'It seems the best of my audience has departed with you'
– Henri Matisse to Sarah Stein, August 5, 1935