Regular museum visitors know the rules when it comes to photography. At most New York museums, photography (with no flash) is allowed in all the galleries which house works of the permanent collection. Special exhibitions, however, prohibit photography of any kind. Try to take a quick pic on your iPhone and you can expect one of the guards to admonish you. “Sorry ma’am, no photography”. You will then be handcuffed and escorted to an interrogation room <– just kidding 😉 So imagine my delight when I was told that photography WAS allowed at the recent “Picasso Sculpture” show at MoMA. Yay! The show ended its five month run on February 7th, and I saw it in its final few days, which is how I see most of the big acclaimed art shows in town – when the end date is looming! I’m very glad I didn’t miss this one.
Picasso had formal training in painting and drawing only. So his approach to sculpture was motivated by experimental impulses, ingenuity, and his fertile creative mind, all of which were abundantly on display in this exhibit. What we witnessed, from gallery to gallery, was a man engaged in self-taught exploration, working in three-dimensions, letting his imagination run free, salvaging metal and wood scraps, found objects, paper and paint, cardboard, string, nails, plants, plaster, bronze, and anything he could get his hands on. In a wide array of subject matter – women, animals, children, instruments, etc. -Picasso’s sculptural expressions alternate from childlike to muscular, classical to avant-garde, spontaneous to engineered. He worked big, he worked small, and continued to experiment with sculpture for decades – a perpetual student – up to the mid-1960s. It was a truly fun and fascinating show.
This is just a sampling of the works, and among the ones I’ve chosen to post there is surely something for everyone here. I took all the photos in this post, so feel free to download, keep, and share!
Woman with Hat, painted sheet metal:
Maquette for Richard J. Daley Center Sculpture, oxidized welded steel:
Head of a Woman, painted sheet metal and iron wire:
Little Horse, painted metal with wheels:
Sylvette, painted sheet metal:
Kneeling Woman Combing Her Hair, bronze:
Head of a Woman (Fernande), bronze:
Guitar, ferrous sheet metal and wire:
Picasso did six versions of this, Glass of Absinthe, in painted bronze with an actual absinthe spoon. He made the sugar cube also from a piece of bronze. A very popular alcoholic spirit in Picasso’s day, absinthe was prepared by pouring it over a sugar cube and then diluting with water:
Guitar, painted sheet metal, painted tin box, and iron wire:
Composition with Glove, glove, cardboard, plants sewn and glued, coated with sand:
Seated Woman, bronze:
Part of the memorial monument to Guillaume Apollinaire, French poet and friend of Picasso who died in 1918. Head of a Woman, iron, sheet metal, springs, and painted metal colanders:
Also from the Monument to Apollinaire, Woman in the Garden, welded and painted iron:
Head of a Woman, plaster:
One of my favorites, The Reaper, plaster and wood:
And another one of my favorites, this rough but quirky Little Owl, painted bronze with nails:
Woman Carrying a Child, painted wood and section of palm leaf:
Cat, bronze:
The Orator, plaster, stone, and metal dowel:
Man with a Lamb, bronze:
The Bathers, wood and gesso:
I’ll let the man himself sign off this post. Picasso’s signature on the back of one of his sheet metal creations:
