Red Madras Headdress
This conversation is connected to Red Madras Headdress.
Matisse painted Red Madras Headdress (Le Madras Rouge) in 1907, two years after the Salon d'Automne that earned the Fauvists their name. His wife Amélie sits with her hands clasped, wearing a dark teal dress patterned with red-brown flourishes, a bright red madras headscarf wrapped around her dark hair. The background is a flat, saturated blue. Matisse painted Amélie frequently in the early years of their marriage — she was his primary model and his business partner, managing the sale of his work. The color relationships in this portrait are classic Matisse: red against blue, teal against orange, the face modeled in greens and pinks. The original is in the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.