In 1913, the Chicago Institute of Art was the first museum in the country to exhibit the work of Pablo Picasso. 100 years later, there's a spectacular exhibition at the institute featuring such diverse and significant works from the museum's own collection and from collections throughout the city, Picasso and Chicago not only charts the full gamut of Picasso's artistic career but also chronicles the growth of Chicago as a place for modern art and the storied moments of overlap that have contributed to the vibrant interest in Picasso from 1913 to today.
One of my favorite parts of this exhibit was the video they made about the research they did on the paintings. If you've ever done research on Picasso's blue period, you have no doubt stumbled on this piece:
The Old Guitarist is one of Picasso's more well known pieces (Unless you're George Bush... his favorite is the "The Party So Fun They Invited a Horse.") During the research film, they showed how you could see the paintings underneath The Old Guitarist. You can actually see some of the outlines of the former paintings in the piece if you look at it under the right light.
There were so many pieces that I had never seen before! Picasso not only did the paintings we're familiar with, but also illustrated books. One of my favorite things that he did was interpretations of paintings from the great masters.
Can you tell which paintings this is?
Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe!
If you're near the midwest/Chicagoland before May 12th, I suggest you give it a go! It's an excellent exhibit for sure covering not only the things that people think of when Picasso is brought up, but also gems not usually seen.
This past weekend I went to Intuit, which is a museum for outsider and intuitive art. They have a Henry Darger installation that I've wanted to see for a while now and I finally got to experience it.
I have to say, I was a little disappointed that there wasn't more of his art displayed, but the room was fantastic. I think I'll have to revisit the documentary again because I was so excited! They were able to make an approximate recreation of his apartment, at least in size. If the installation was true to life, he did not have very much space. The above picture is probably 1/4 of the whole room. The other exhibitions were wonderful and interesting. I highly recommend visiting Intuit.
I also visited the Roger Brown Study Collection and I'm going to do a separate post about that... but here's a sneak peek!
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