A Major Summer Exhibition At Wadsworth Atheneum—

“The Artist’s Studio” Explores The Evolving Styles Of Pablo Picasso

HARTFORD — Pablo Picasso’s astonishing capacity for experimentation and self-renewal are celebrated in “Picasso: The Artist’s Studio,” a traveling exhibition organized by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art with The Cleveland Museum of Art. The show has opened at the Wadsworth Atheneum, where it remains on view until September 23, and then travels to Cleveland where it will be on view October 21, 2001 to January 6, 2002.

Kate M. Sellers, the newly appointed director of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, commented on the exhibition, saying “’Picasso: The Artist’s Studio’ is the fourth in an ongoing series of major shows organized by the Wadsworth Atheneum that celebrate our rich history and collections.

“There are two signature pictures dealing with this theme in the museum’s permanent collection. And ‘Chick’ Austin, the Atheneum’s pioneering director, organized America’s first comprehensive Picasso exhibition here in 1934,” Ms Sellers continued.

Unlike many modern artists who treated their studios as inviolable sanctuaries, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) used his studio not only as a place of work, but as a social and intellectual center where he negotiated with dealers, enthralled collectors, argued with critics, discussed literature, and seduced lovers. The studio is a recurring theme throughout Picasso’s evolving art and constructions of self-identity.

Nearly two-thirds of the approximately 35 paintings and all of the ten drawings featured in “Picasso: The Artist’s Studio” are loans from foreign collections. Photographs documenting Picasso at work will also be displayed.

Encompassing an exhilarating range of styles — Realist, Cubist, Symbolist, Surrealist, Abstract and Classical — the pictures span Picasso’s lengthy career. Early works include the oil study “Academic nude” (1895-97) and the charcoal and pencil “Study of Left Arm” (1904); the Blue Period masterpiece “La Vie” (1903), which was Picasso’s first important painting on the artist’s studio theme; “Self-Portrait with Palette” (1906); and the Cubist painting “The Architect’s Table” (1912), which refers to Gertrude Stein’s patronage.

According to guest curator Michael C. FitzGerald, an associate professor of fine arts at Trinity College and the author of Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth Century Art (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1995), Picasso’s most intense exploration of the significance of the studio occurred during 1925-1935 and in the last 18 years of his life, 1955-1973.

“During the first phase, Picasso was inspired by the Surrealists’ fascination with the unconscious to weave a complex series of images that delve into the creative process,” said Mr FitzGerald. “Drawing on sources of inspiration as diverse as African tribal objects and Classical sculpture, he presented the artist in many guises — tribal shaman, Greek god, or vengeful Minotaur, among others — to convey the range and variety of artistic inspiration.”

Works from this period in the exhibition include “Bust and Palette” (1925), “Painter with Palette at Easel” (1928), “The Sculptor” (1931), and “Still Life: Bust, Bowl, and Palette” (1932).

“In his last, most extended, phase of devotion to the subject of the artist’s studio, Picasso created dozens of paintings that move from realistic renderings of the rooms in which he worked to evocations of great artists of the past, and final confrontations with life’s passing,” Mr FitzGerald continued.

“In his last years, he courageously grappled with his physical deterioration by portraying the artist as a failing old man, before closing his career in a final burst of optimism by transforming the artist into a vigorous child,” Mr FitzGerald concluded.

Examples include two works from the mid-1950s depicting the muse-like figures of his second wife, Jacqueline Rocque, in “Las Meninas” (1957); one of many homages to Velazquez, “Painter and Infant” (1969); and the late self-portrait “At Work” (1971).

Lenders to “Picasso: The Artist’s Studio” include the Picasso heirs and private collectors; Picasso Museu, Barcelona, Musée Picasso, Paris; Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Tate Gallery, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and private collections in Europe and the United States. Cynthia Roman, an associate curator of European art at Wadsworth Atheneum, is the coordinating curator for the Hartford exhibition.

Accompanying the exhibition is a 208-page catalogue with 100 color and 75 black and white illustrations written by Michael FitzGerald with an essay on Picasso’s “La Vie” by William Robinson, associate curator of painting at The Cleveland Museum of Art. Picasso: The Artist’s Studio, published by the Wadsworth Atheneum in association with Yale University Press, London, is available for $50 hardcover or $29.95 soft cover edition, at The Museum Shop at the Wadsworth Atheneum.

Admission for “Picasso: The Artist’s Studio” at the Wadsworth Atheneum is by timed ticket. Tickets are $15 for adults; $13 for seniors and students with ID; $11 for youths age 6 to 17; $8 for museum members; and free for children under age 6. The ticket price includes general museum admission and handling fees.

To buy tickets, call VISTA Ticketing toll-free at 877-600-MAIN or visit Museum Ticketing Network at www.museumtix.com. Museum members should call 877-WADS-MEM. (Do not call the Wadsworth Atheneum.)

Thursday Evening

Artists’ Talks

In conjunction with the Picasso exhibition, Connecticut artists working in a variety of media will give informal talks on their favorite works in the permanent collections of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art during July and August. The gallery talks will take place on Thursday evenings at 6:30. Admission is free.

Painter Kathryn Myers will continue the series (which began on July 5) on July 19. Subsequent guests include Scott Richter, painter, on July 26; Yolanda Vasquez Petrocelli, photographer and mixed media artist, on August 2; Patricia Rosoff, painter, on August 16; Ionis Martin, painter, on August 23; and Chet Kempczynski, painter and printmaker, on August 30.

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is at 600 Main Street in Hartford. For general museum information, call 860-278-2670. Museum hours are Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 am to 5 pm. Thursday 11 am to 8 pm; and Friday through Sunday, 11 am to 5 pm.