It Had to Happen Eventually - Musee Picasso 11-3-15

Well it had to happen eventually, we made a trip to the Musee Picasso today.  They have been celebrating an anniversary of their founding and have mounted an exhibition celebrating their founding in 1985 (30 yrs).

Jacqueline Portrait

We took one of our bus routes down to within a couple blocks and walked over but when we went in the gateway to the courtyard there must have been 100 people in line waiting to get in.  Since we had not pre-purchased our tickets we decided to take stock.  We told the line monitor that we were going to lunch to consider our options, his response, "great idea, bon appetite" so we walked across the street and ordered a couple hot drinks.  A tisane for Deb and hot chocolate for me while we formed a new plan for the day since neither of us wanted to stand in a long line.  After we finished we walked back to see where we could pre-purchase tickets, when low and behold the line was gone!  So we walked right in.
The museum is large for a single artist so it took us the rest of the afternoon to walk all the way through.  Deb was a bit put off because they didn't really follow a chronological order that we could discern, but it didn't make it less interesting just harder to understand his evolution as a painter.

1951 cityscape

Still Life on Rattan 

But to be fair they seemed to be presenting his evolution within movements of which he was the avant garde.  So we had his early more conventional painting, the blue and rose periods, and then branched quickly into his forays into african-tribal influences, cubism, surrealism, and then abstraction.  It was interesting to see that as he got older he still really experimented but he also mellowed and in the 50's he was painting things that we in Colorado would readily recognize and identify with.

Rosenberg Portrait/Paintings

There was one contemporary installation that was quite moving, especially if you've seen or read, "The Monuments Men" or "The Rape of Europa" about the theft by the Nazis of artwork from all over Europe.  They focused on Jews but not exclusively, this shows a Picasso portrait of the wife and child of Paul Rosenberg, an early supporter and collector, and all the paintings that were confiscated from him during WWII and before, some of which have never been returned.  It's quite chilling if you're a collector.

Taureau Plate

Portrait of Dora Maar

Like his relationships with women, even though he respected them, he had relationships with other artists that would blow hot for a while and then die out.  It was interesting to find out that his private art collection of other artists has more Renoir than any other artist, especially in light of the recent groundswell against Renoir. Then followed by Matisse, who along with him were the most influential artists of their period. Many of his late paintings were quite reminiscent of Matisse. Of course Cezanne was dead by then but he was highly respected by Picasso as well.