Henri Matisse (Le Cateau-Cambrésis, 1869 - 1954, Nice)
Female Nude Seated on the Ground, 1908-1909
Graphite on wove paper , 31.4 x 24.1 cm (12 3/8 x 9 1/2 in.)
General admission for children 17 years and under is always free
This vertical sketch of a female nude was made with pencil on cream-colored paper. The woman is rendered with a minimal amount of lines, which do not provide a solid, continuous outline. She is seated on a blank ground. Her knees are bent to our left, and her feet and her rear end are to our right. Her torso is twisting toward us, and small circles indicate the belly button on her rounded stomach and the nipple of one breast. Part of her torso is hidden by her left arm, which is bent at the elbow so that her hand rests on her chin with one finger pointed upward. Her right arm, which is indicated with only a vertical line, appears to be supporting her. Her neck is not visible. Her facial expression is pensive, with a downward glance and a slight smile. Her hair is rendered with just a few curves and flops on either side of her face near unseen ears. The signature of the artist, Henri Matisse, appears in the lower right corner.
Short Gallery
Commentary
Isabella's Back Bay neighbor and rival for the title of leading art patroness in Boston, Sarah Sears had her eye on Matisse as a "comer." Sears was an accomplished watercolorist who had taken up photography in the early 1890s and been accepted into Alfred Stieglitz's Photo-Secession. After the death of her husband in 1905, she spent an extended period in Paris where she amassed cutting-edge works by Manet, Cezanne, Degas, and her friend Mary Cassatt, and met Matisse through the Steins (Leo, Gertrude, Sarah, and Michael). Whether she acquired this drawing of a reclining nude that she gave to Isabella from the artist, from his Parisian dealers, or from the shows that Stieglitz mounted in 1908 and 1910 cannot be determined. In any event, this modest study evinced the radical rupture with classical ideals of female beauty that shocked early viewers of Matisse's work and undoubtedly appealed to Gardner's self-image as an opponent of prudishness and hypocritical morality. Isabella loaned this drawing to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for exhibition in late January 1911.