Would you have noticed it?
In 1961, Genevieve Habert, a Wall Street stockbroker, was walking through the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, when she noticed that Henri Matisse’s Le Bateau (“The Boat”) was hanging upside down. Habert attempted to report the error to several museum staff, including a guard, whose response was
“You don’t know what’s up and you don’t know what’s down and neither do we.”
Frustrated that no one at the museum would take her seriously, Habert contacted The New York Times, which gained the immediate attention of the museum director. The next day, the work was correctly hung, having been displayed upside down for a total of 47 days.
