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Picasso ~ Art Institute Chicago

A century ago, in 1913, the Art Institute of Chicago became the first art museum in the country to present the work of a young Spaniard who would become the preeminent artist of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso. This Spring the museum celebrates the special 100-year relationship between Picasso and Chicago by bringing together over 250 of the finest examples of the artist’s paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, and ceramics from private collections in the city, as well as from the museum’s collection, for the first large-scale Picasso exhibition organized by the museum on almost 30 years. The Chicago sculpture pictured here, a woman’s head, was the first of monumental scale by Picasso, and the first such work designed expressly for a civic project in the United States. Picasso made the piece a gift to the city, unveiled on August 15th, 1967.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, “Mayor Daley tugged a white ribbon, loosing the blue percale wrap. A hearty cheer went up as the covering slipped off the big steel sculpture that looks at once like a bird and a woman.” Seiji Ozawa lead  the Symphony, the mayor smiled, and 50,000 Chicagoans looked on. The following poem, The Chicago Picasso, was read by Gwendolyn Brooks.

Does man love Art? Man visits Art, but squirms.
Art hurts. Art urges voyages–
and it is easier to stay at home,
the nice beer ready.
In commonrooms
we belch, or sniff, or scratch.
Are raw.

But we must cook ourselves and style ourselves for Art, who
is a requiring courtesan.
We squirm.
We do not hug the Mona Lisa.
We
may touch or tolerate
an astounding fountain, or a horse-and-rider.
At most, another Lion.

Observe the tall cold of a Flower
which is as innocent and as guilty,
as meaningful and as meaningless as any
other flower in the western field.