Blue Nude ("Nu bleu, Souvenir de Biskra") is an early 1907 oil painting by Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...

. It is located at the Baltimore Museum of Art

Baltimore Museum of Art

The Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...

 as part of the Cone Collection.

Matisse painted the nude when a sculpture he was working on shattered. He later finished the sculpture which is entitled Reclining Nude I (Aurore). Matisse shocked the French public at the 1907 Société des Artistes Indépendants

Société des Artistes Indépendants

—The Société des Artistes Indépendants formed in Paris in summer 1884 choosing the device "No jury nor awards" . Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac were among its founders...

 when he exhibited Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra).