Gaby
This painting by French artist Henri Matisse, one of the leading figures of Fauvism, first went on display in 1961 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It shows a sailboat and its reflection on the water.
Initially, even the most seasoned admirers of Matisse’s work couldn’t agree on what it showed. At one point, museum staff—unsure which way was up—hung it upside down. It stayed that way for 47 days while roughly 116,000 people saw it.
The gallery hung the painting on October 17, and it wasn’t until December 3 that Geneviève Aber, a stock exchange employee with a passion for art, noticed the mistake. She alerted the guards, but they didn’t act. Undeterred, she wrote to a newspaper; journalists then notified the museum’s management.
At first glance, the painting looks perfectly symmetrical. A closer look reveals that the left end of the boat is slightly raised. More precisely, it’s the sail that’s tilted upward—the depiction is quite schematic. That raised detail is missing from the boat’s reflection on the water.
Matisse rendered the clouds and horizon with streaks of pink that frame the sailboat and its reflection.
Photographic portrait of Henri Matisse by Carl Van Vechten (Library of Congress)
French painter Matisse was a leading figure among the Fauves, artists who prioritized color over subject matter. The movement’s paintings were often simple, with blocks of color serving as the main “characters.” Many critics rejected Matisse’s innovations; for example, contemporary critic Camille Mauclair railed against the Fauves, calling their work “not art; it’s just a pot of paint spilled on canvases!”
