Valentine's
Day. Chicago. Picasso. The Art Institute. It was a perfect day to view over 250 exquisite works that ignite the connection between Chicago and Picasso.
I fell in
love with the art of Picasso in 1969, the same year I fell in love with Chicago
and my husband. The current exhibition, Picasso and Chicago, embraces the intriguing
relationship between two of my three loves.
The
passion that is fueled between Chicago and Picasso represents
strong similarities: an artist whose works represent a constant metamorphosis
and the evolution of a great city once destroyed by fire. The result is the “birthplace of a modern city
and the birthplace of modern art.”
Picasso and Chicago coincides with the centennial of the International Exhibition of Modern Art, known to most of us as the Armory Show. The show unveiled the works of Picasso for the very first time in
an American museum, the Art Institute.
At that time the Art Institute was the only museum that dared to host the artwork from the
Armory Show.
Since the
original debut of modern art one hundred years ago, the Art Institute and Chicago
launched other “firsts” and continued to showcase the
works of Picasso and support modern art.
In 1923,
Chicago was the first city in the United States to initiate a solo exhibition of Picasso in a
non-commercial space. In 1926, the Art
Institute acquired the first painting by Picasso in the
United States, Old Guitarist, and made it available for the public to view. This historic painting from Picasso's Blue Period was gifted to the Art Institute from Frederic Clay Bartlett.
Pablo Picasso. The Old Guitarist, 1902–04. The Art Institute of Chicago, Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection. © 2013 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York.
Throughout
the century Chicago, with the support of the Art Institute, The Arts Club of
Chicago and The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, continued to
reinforce support of modernism.
Noted
Chicago collectors were also influential in promoting modern art. Perhaps the most prominent instigator was
Chicagoan Arthur Jerome Eddy, attorney, collector and art critic who championed
the concept of the original Art Institute Armory Show exhibition.
Eddy’s
private collection also included works of Picasso.
In 1940,
the Art Institute collaborated with the Museum of Modern Art to present Picasso: Forty Years of His Art. The project proved
to be the largest exhibition of
Picasso to date that resulted in record attendance.
Chicago’s ongoing admiration for
Picasso culminated in 1963 when Picasso was approached to create a monumental
sculpture to coincide with the completion of the new Chicago Civic Center,
known today as the Richard J. Daley Center.
The consensus was that the location would showcase the “most important public
sculpture in America.” Pablo Picasso was
regarded as “the
world’s
greatest living artist” and was asked to explore the project.
On August
15, 1967, the unveiling of the Richard J. Daley Center Sculpture took place.
The project proved to be another “first,” a monumental sculpture by Picasso and the first designed
exclusively for a civic project in the United States.
The Civic Center opening celebration included a written message from President Lyndon Johnson, “ Your new Civic center plaza
with its unique and monumental sculpture by one of the acknowledged geniuses of
modern art is a fitting addition to a city famous for its creative
vitality. Chicago, which gave the world
its first skyscraper and America some of its greatest artists and poets, has
long recognized that art, beauty and open space are essential and proper
elements in urban living. You have
demonstrated once again that Chicago is a city second to none.”
The Art
Institute’s Picasso and Chicago takes the viewer on
a journey of works from the Blue Period, the Rose Period, Cubism, paintings and
drawings inspired by Renaissance and Baroque art, sculpture, etchings (Suite
Vollard), linocut, assemblage and ceramics.
To view
the exhibit is not only a treasure to behold but to treasure a city rich in
creativity.
Exhibition
details:
Membership
preview: February 16-19
Public:
February 20-May 12
Lead Corporate Sponsor:
