SFMOMA's Matisse exhibition — the biggest reassembly of the painting's scandalous 1905 debut in over a century — closes Sept. 13. Members get two crowd-free morning windows on the final weekend; everyone else has until closing to catch it.

If you've been meaning to get to the big Matisse show at SFMOMA and never quite did, the calendar just called your bluff. The exhibition on Floor 4 (external source, opens in a new tab) — 151 Third St. — closes Sunday, Sept. 13, and the final weekend opens with a sendoff reserved for members.

The early windows. On the closing Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 12 and 13, SFMOMA lets card-carrying members into the galleries two hours before the public — members-only "Last Looks" that run each morning until noon. Entry is free with membership, but you have to claim a date ahead of time at tickets.sfmoma.org, and the usual guest caps apply, so it's not a rally-the-group affair. Not a member? This sunrise slot isn't yours — but the galleries stay open to everyone right up to closing.

Why it's worth the trip. The whole thing orbits a single canvas: the 1905 portrait Matisse made of his wife, Amélie, in slashing, unnatural color that got him and his circle jeered as fauves — wild beasts — at that autumn's Paris salon. What the museum has pulled together on Floor 4 (external source, opens in a new tab) is a rebuild of that infamous room, gathering more of the paintings from the 1905 debut than have hung side by side in over a century, with work by Derain, Marquet, and Vlaminck around the Matisse. From there it chases the aftershock forward — through contemporary artists Rachel Harrison and Mickalene Thomas, and closer to home through Bay Area figurative painters David Park, Diebenkorn, and Joan Brown. It's a limited run built largely on loans, and it isn't traveling on from here.

Logistics for the rest of us. Non-members pay a surcharge on top of general admission — $10 on weekdays, $12 on weekends and holidays (external source, opens in a new tab) — while members get in free any day. The building sits at Third and Mission, a level few-minute walk from Montgomery BART/Muni; drivers do better in the Fifth & Mission garage than circling SoMa for a meter. One scheduling trap: the museum is dark on Wednesdays, open 10 to 5 most days, with Thursdays running late to 8 p.m.

What I'd actually do. A closing weekend is a crowded weekend — that's the entire reason those member mornings exist. If you carry a membership, take the Saturday 10 a.m. window and use both hours; this is a color show, and color reads better in an empty room. If you don't, aim for a weekday, when the surcharge drops to $10 and Thursday's 8 p.m. close leaves room for an after-work visit. Whatever you pick, the door shuts on the 13th.