Chicago certainly has its Picasso. At 50 feet high at 50 W. Washington Street on Daley Plaza, Chicago’s Picasso statue is an instantly recognizable symbol of the city.
However Chicago's ties to Picasso go back 100 years to the 1913 Armory Show when the Art Institute of Chicago was the only art museum to be among the show's hosts. The show was a landmark event in bringing contemporary, experimental artists that included Marcel Duchamp and Henri Matisse to the United States.
Even though no museum has to have a reason for doing an exhibition on Picasso, the Art Institute is celebrating the Armory Show's centennial with “Picasso and Chicago,” a major exhibition of more than 250 works by the famed Spanish artist.
When the Art Institute of Chicago exhibition opens to the public Feb. 20, 2013, it will include the museum’s 42 inch marquette (model) of the statue and sketches. Member previews and lectures start a week earlier.
An extensive exhibition of sculptures, prints, ceramics, drawings and paintings, the show will feature works from the artist’s different periods such as “The Frugal Meal” (1904) an etching printed in blue ink from the the end of his Blue Period, and the “Red Armchair, a 1931 surrealist painting.
Organized by the Art Institute based on its own extensive holdings and loans from local private collections, the show continues through May 12, 2013.
"It is clear in even the briefest of histories that Chicago played a critical, early role in the reception and development of modern art in the United States," said exhibition curator Stephanie D'Alessandro, the Art Institute's Cary C. and Frances Comer Curator of Modern Art.
"While the career of Pablo Picasso is just one of many examples, it is nonetheless an extraordinary story: some of the most significant events in the reception of his art including the first presentation of Picasso's works at an American art museum: the first solo show devoted to the artist outside a commercial gallery and the first permanent display of his work in an American museum, all happened in Chicago and all within just the first two decades of the last century. This exhibition marks the special hundred-year relationship of Pablo Picasso and our city," said D'Alessandro.
For admission fees and more information visit AIC and call 312-433-3600. The Art Institute of Chicago is 111 S. Michigan Ave. at Adams Street, Chicago, IL 60603
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