RICHMOND, Va. — Art lovers on the East Coast soon will get to view a rare exhibition of essential works from Pablo Picasso's personal collection.
"Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso, Paris" is to run Feb. 19 through May 15 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. It will include 176 of the artist's paintings, drawings, sculptures and etchings, and serves as a retrospective covering each notable artistic period of his eight-decade career.
The touring exhibit was made possible because the Paris museum is undergoing extensive renovations that won't be complete until next year. Richmond is the second of the exhibit's three U.S. showings and the only East Coast stop.
Modern-art curators say the exhibit provides Picasso enthusiasts and casual visitors alike an understanding of why the artist, who died in 1973, remains a towering figure in the art world.
The 1904 oil-on-canvas masterpiece "La Celestina" shows a solitary, gray-haired bordello owner with a blinded eye. Picasso painted several similar portraits during his early-career Blue Period, characterized by somber tones and marginalized subjects such as beggars and prostitutes.
The exhibit also highlights Picasso's depictions of his numerous mistresses and muses, including Dora Maar. A 1937 portrait of the French surrealist photographer features a colorful Maar displaying flamboyant, red-nailed hands. Maar also was the inspiration for his Weeping Woman paintings.
"Portrait of Olga in an Armchair," 1918, depicts Picasso's first wife, Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova, seated on a Spanish-design tapestry, the space around the figure left purposefully unfinished. "Jacqueline With Crossed Hands," 1954, features Jacqueline Roque, Picasso's second wife and most-painted muse.
The show, directed by the Paris museum's chief curator Anne Baldassari, also includes the 1911 "Man With a Guitar" and 1909-10 "Le Sacre Coeur" — prime examples of the Cubism movement, which Picasso developed with 20th century sculptor Georges Braque.
Several Surrealist bronze heads of mistress Marie-Therese Walter, and "Head of a Bull," crafted from a bicycle seat and handlebars, also will be displayed. Late-period pieces include "The Matador," a self-portrait completed shortly before his death.
The exhibition made its first U.S. appearance at the Seattle Art Museum; after Richmond it will head back west to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Before coming to the United States, the Picasso collection made well-received stops in Helsinki, Finland, and in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia.
Online:
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, http://www.vmfa.state.va.us/Picasso/