Erika Holmquist-Wall

In fact Matisse, one of the photos of him in the Cone sisters’ apartment, in Etta Cone’s apartment, he is standing in front of it. I think it was in her dining room and it was a picture that she really liked. When he offered it to her, she was very concerned about the fish that you see here on the beach, and whether they were alive, whether this was a still life of still alive item or not. And he assured her that he had paid a little boy from town to water them, so that, once he was done, he could throw them back into the water, which made her feel much better about a painting like this.