NEW YORK, NY.- Henri Matisse called them “my two Baltimore ladies.” Their friend Gertrude Stein wrote a poem about them entitled “Two Women.” The sisters Dr. Claribel Cone (1864-1929) and Miss Etta Cone (1870-1949) began buying art directly out of the Parisian studios of avant-garde artists in 1905. Although their taste for this radical art was little understood – critics disparaged Matisse at the time and Pablo Picasso was virtually unknown – the Cones followed their passions and eventually amassed one of the world’s greatest art collections.The Jewish Museum presents Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore, an exhibition of over 50 works from The Baltimore Museum of Art’s internationally renowned Cone Collection, from May 6 through September 25, 2011. Paintings