Exploring Matisse’s ‘Wild Palette’: Can AI offer new ways to connect with art?

SFMOMA’s exhibition Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal stages the 1905 debut of Matisse’s Femme au chapeau at the Salon d’Automne in Paris. At the time, the painting shocked audiences with its radical use of non-naturalistic colors and wildly expressive brushwork.

Matisse’s departure from convention started a new movement called Fauvism — the work of “wild beasts." Matisse had an expansive imagination, inviting viewers into boldly rendered subjects unbound by the limits of reality.

Today, that same spirit of boundary-breaking is embraced through a partnership between SFMOMA and Google Arts & Culture. Moving beyond the confines of the canvas, our latest collaboration uses Google AI to allow audiences to step directly into Matisse’s world, immersing themselves in imagined environments that bring his radical vision to life.

Experiment: Matisse: The Wild Palette

As detailed by Google Arts & Culture Lab, the experiment Matisse: The Wild Palette uses Veo to animate four early Matisse works from SFMOMA’s collection including Femme au chapeau. Developed in close collaboration with SFMOMA’s curatorial and education teams, the AI-generated animations invite audiences to venture beyond the canvas. The experience is layered with educational depth, offering interpretive insights that guide visitors through the history, technique, and sometimes-scandalous backstory related to the works.

Film: Bringing the past to life

Technology: Hands-on AI

Matisse embraced innovation. In that same spirit, SFMOMA and Google Arts & Culture are continuing their long-standing partnership to explore new ways for visitors to connect and engage with art. In bringing these collaborations to life, we prioritized a balance of innovation and institutional stewardship.

Every element of the project — from the archival imagery used in the film to the aesthetic parameters of the animations — was carefully selected and created in partnership with SFMOMA’s curatorial and education teams. It is important to us that the visitor experience is as grounded in art history as it is technologically innovative. Part of SFMOMA’s vision is to encourage visitors to see the world — and art — in new ways, and from a variety of different perspectives. We hope that visitors come away from the exhibition — and the video and digital experiments within — energized by what they've learned, and inspired by new ways of thinking about and making art.