Desnudo azul

Matisse started this in 1907 as a sculpture, not a painting. He was modelling a reclining figure in clay when it fell apart in his hands, and rather than start the clay again he reached for a canvas and painted the pose instead. The subtitle, Souvenir de Biskra, points to an oasis town in Algeria he had visited, though the blue shadows and hard, sculptural body owe nothing to a travel postcard. When he showed it in Paris that spring the public was scandalised, partly by how ambiguous the figure looked. Six years later it crossed the Atlantic to the 1913 Armory Show, and when the tour reached Chicago art students put Matisse on mock trial and prepared to burn a copy of this very picture in effigy. It later reached Baltimore through the collectors Etta and Claribel Cone, sisters who bought modern French art by the trunkload.