Woman with a Hat is a painting by Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...

 from 1905.

It is believed that the woman in the painting was Matisse's wife, Amelie.

It was exhibited with the work of other artists, now known as "Fauves

Fauvism

Fauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...

" at the 1905 Salon d'Automne

Salon d'Automne

In 1903, the first Salon d'Automne was organized by Georges Rouault, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Angele Delasalle and Albert Marquet as a reaction to the conservative policies of the official Paris Salon...

.

Critic Louis Vauxcelles

Louis Vauxcelles

Louis Vauxcelles was an influential French art critic. He is credited with coining the terms Fauvism , and Cubism ....

 described the work with the phrase "Donatello

Donatello

Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi , also known as Donatello, was an early Renaissance Italian artist and sculptor from Florence...

 au milieu des fauves!" (Donatello among the wild beasts), referring to a Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

-type sculpture that shared the room with them. His comment was printed on 17 October 1905 in Gil Blas

Gil Blas (periodical)

Gil Blas was a Parisian literary periodical founded by Augustin-Alexandre Dumont in November 1879. It was in publication until 1914...

, a daily newspaper, and passed into popular usage.

The pictures gained considerable condemnation, such as "A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public" from the critic Camille Mauclair

Camille Mauclair

Séverin Faust , better known by his pseudonym Camille Mauclair, was a French poet, novelist, biographer, travel writer, and art critic....

, but also some favorable attention. The painting that was singled out for attacks was Matisse's Woman with a Hat, which was bought by Gertrude

Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...

 and Leo Stein

Leo Stein

Leo Stein was an American art collector and critic. He was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, the older brother of Gertrude Stein. He became an influential promoter of 20th-century paintings. Beginning in 1892, he studied at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for two years. The...

: this had a very positive effect on Matisse, who was suffering demoralisation from the bad reception of his work.

Gertrude and Leo's sister-in law Sarah Stein [married to the elder brother Michael] claimed to have been the original purchaser of this painting, not Gertrude (Leo did not like the painting at first). One can see it in photographs of Sarah and Michael's home on Rue Madame. It was a centerpiece in Sarah's home in Palo Alto, CA for many years.

Sarah Stein later sold the painting to her friend Elise Haas who donated it to SFMOMA

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...

.