Picasso sells out at the Frist

The Frist Art Museum, Nashville/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Inside the galleries at the Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The Barefoot Girl,  1895. La Coruna. Loaned by Musée national Picasso-Paris. 

Picasso was only 13 when he painted this amazing working-class girl which shows his empathy for the subject, according to the label.  It's among the first of many seated women he painted such as the one below he made 37 years later.  Someone said they were birds in a cage.  (Picasso's cage.) 

Reading Woman, 1932. Boisgeloup. Musée national Picasso-Paris. 

This is of Marie-Thérèse Walter, Picasso's lover at the time and featured below in The Sculptor.  Marie was only 17 and almost 30 years younger than Picasso who was married when they met.  A standard line:  "You have an interesting face.  I would love to do a portrait of you," (according to Frist lecturers, Terri Cohen and Peg Werts, who gave one of many fine online sessions the Frist offered at no charge.  Dr. Werts paraphrased Picasso:  "I paint people as I think them, not as I see them.")

Picasso featured Marie-Thérèse Walter in many works, and in 1935, their daughter, Maya, was born.  Four years after Picasso died, Marie committed suicide.

Portrait of Dora Maar, 1937. Paris. Musée national Picasso-Paris.

Picasso took up with Dora Maar in 1936 at the time of the outbreak of Spanish Civil War when he was still involved with Marie-Thérèse Walter and married to Olga Khokhlova. Ms. Maar, a photographer, was instrumental in Picasso's development of Guernica.* She challenged him intellectually, according to the Frist online talk given by Ms. Cohen and Ms. Werts.  

Picasso often pictured Ms. Maar crying, easy enough to understand after he shoved aside women when another, more desirable woman crossed his way, such as Francoise Gilot, a Picasso relationship which led to Ms. Maar's breakdown and reclusiveness.

She split with him in 1943, regained strength and began to paint. Right on, sister!

This work was featured on the cover of the booklet at the Frist show. 

At the exhibition, my son, William, asked me how Picasso was able to attract so many women:  "It was not looks!" I exclaimed. Women are attracted to fame, power, and money, all Picasso possessions, I told him, which explains why ugly men have beautiful wives. For a while, anyway.

Man with a Guitar, 1911-1913. Paris. Musée national Picasso-Paris

Can you find the man's moustache, the wall molding, and the rosette on the mandolin?  Good!  You may become an art historian!  The label said this "is characteristic of analytical cubism, which aimed to restore the three-dimensionality of a subject on a single surface by translating it into geometric facets." (?)  Translate that and you may become an author, too!

Both online sessions at the Frist which I attended featured this work.  Despite its connection to surrealism, the painter denied he was a surrealist.

Mother and Child, 1907, Paris. Musée national Picasso-Paris

The label said this rendering reflects the artist's fascination with Iberian, African, and Oceanian sculpture and was probably inspired by a Romanesque Virgin and Child Picasso would have seen in Gosol where he stayed in 1906.

Inside the galleries at the Frist, visitors watch a film of Picasso in motion/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Woman with a Ruffle, 1926. Juan-les-Pins. Musée national Picasso-Paris.

The Sculptor, 1931. Paris. Musée national Picasso-Paris.

The label noted the artist's early 1930s were marked by sculpture. Here a bearded man meditates at a statue of Picasso's lover at the time, Marie- Thérèse Walter. Mingling figures characterized much of  Picasso's 1920s output, which carried over into the next decade.

The Bathers, 1918. Biarritz. Musée national Picasso-Paris

Picasso painted this while honeymooning with the Russian ballerina, Olga Khokhlova, whom he had met the previous year and to whom he was married, despite many affairs, until she died in 1955, according to the online presentation at the Frist by Teri Cohen and Peg Werts.  (In an earlier online Frist talk, Amy Von Lintel and Leonard Folgarait also featured this work.)

The Bathers is modeled after Jean Auguste-Dominique Ingres' Turkish Bath.  Dr. Folgarait noted that although the figures are touching themselves, they look away from the viewer.

Head of a Bearded Man, 1938. Musée national Picasso-Paris.

Man with a Straw Hat and Ice Cream Cone, 1938. Mougins. Musée national Picasso-Paris.

Child with Doves, 1943.  Musée national Picasso-Paris.

Although labeled a "degenerate artist" by the Nazis, Picasso remained in Paris during the war years of Nazi occupation, 1940 to 1944 when he painted this large, malformed child holding a rattle, with two doves nearby, all enclosed in a somber setting, perhaps underground, perhaps inside a tomb.

Picasso, his art and his public, 1968. Mougins. Musée national Picasso-Paris.

Woman Reading, 1935, Paris. Musée national Picasso-Paris.

The Kiss, 1931. Musee national Picasso-Paris. Made in Paris, loaned by Paris, It must be a French kiss...oooohhhhh. The better to bite you, Madam.  This man resembles a cow and the mark of Zorro connects the two in the sheets. Note how the man's eyes are open; the woman's, closed.  Remember what I said about ugly men?  Who would want to see this monstrosity anyway and she is kissing him! Yeech!

In the Picasso galleries at the Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Woman with a Baby Carriage, 1950, bronze. Musée national Picasso-Paris.

Picasso began recycling objects he found on the street long before collecting discarded objects for art became popular. 

Using abandoned objects he found in Vallauris, France where he was living, the sculptor combined them with a baby carriage, a frying pan, and plaster molds he made into the woman's arms and head/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sunday, 1971. Mougins. Musée national Picasso-Paris.

Musician, 1972. Mougins. Musée national Picasso-Paris.

The Family, 1970, Mougins.  Musée national Picasso-Paris.

The label copy noted this was characteristic of the artist's "final period" with its "deceptively naive handling of the figures," suggesting the influences of the 17th century (?).

At the back of the Frist Art Museum/Photo by Patricia Leslie
 
If you missed Picasso Figures at the Frist Art Museum, here are many of the most intriguing works I found at the only venue for this exhibition in the U.S.

Several of these were featured by guest lecturers speaking at free online sessions hosted by the Frist whom I heard before I saw the show.

The 75 or so pieces on display included paintings, sculptures, works on paper, including a film of him at work, loaned to the Frist by the Musée national Picasso-Paris,  the beneficiary of donations by his family who battled each other for years over his estate.  He left no will but just about 45,000 works, not only his own, but paintings by other notable artists.

The Picasso-Paris claims to hold the largest collection of Picassos in the world.

The value of his estate today is estimated between $530 million and $1.3 billion.

Before Picasso Figures moved on to Quebec, the Frist extended it for a week, until Mother's Day. The timed-entry tickets quickly sold out.

It was a large presentation, spread over several galleries, almost encompassing the Frist's entire first floor of exhibition space. Although the number of viewers attending was enormous, there was plenty of elbow room in the large rooms, and overcrowding was never a problem.

(When I spy an empty space in front of any work at a popular show, I rush up to it, to have it all to myself, at least for a few seconds, until someone else joins me and enters my space. At least, I've "had it" all by myself for a few moments and eventually, I get to the most popular works where solitary looking is seldom experienced.)


I was lucky to be able to attend two of the museum's online sessions about the show, excellent in every respect. (Contract stipulations prohibited recordings of these events.) 

I wondered if Picasso's misogyny would be mentioned, and Terri Cohen and Peg Werts did not disappoint, especially in this time of "Me Too," Ms. Cohen said.  

"He was cruel and abusive to women throughout his life.  His behavior cannot be excused." She said some Frist members were unhappy the museum presented the show, and I wonder if his maltreatment of women played a role in other museums in the U.S. shunning the show, if they did. Was the fact that the show was only presented at one museum in the U.S. venue related to covid-19 or funding? 

What was the reason?

Can it be that after a while, the renderings became rather boring and repetitive? The crazy, disjointed, ugly figures? Maybe with the attention to women's rights and the increasing acceptance of us as equals, Picasso will fall from favor or perhaps the descent has already begun. One can hope!

When in Nashville, visit the Frist, housed on Broadway in the former home of Nashville's main U.S. Post Office building, an art deco gorgeous structure, with or without art on display.

*Guernica was not part of this show, Ms. Cohen and Ms. Werts said. Beginning in 1937,  it was kept on and off at the Museum of Modern Art for safekeeping, to tour the world before MOMA returned it reluctantly to Spain in 1981. 

It is one of the most recognizable pieces of art in the world. 

patricialesli@gmail.com
















Roboto

Native Women artists at the Renwick and the Frist

This is a photograph of the outside poster of the exhibition by Native Women artists.at the Renwick Gallery.in Washington, D.C.

Marie Watt, Seneca Nation of Indians, Blanket Stories: Three Sisters, Four Pelts, Sky Woman, Cousin Rose, and All My Relations, 2007, Seattle Art Museum, General Acquisition Fund, in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum,
To the left is Hummingbird Copper Dress, 1989 by Dorothy Grant (Haida) with Robert Davidson (Haida/Tlingit) at the Renwick Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Marie Watt, Seneca Nation of Indians, Blanket Stories: Three Sisters, Four Pelts, Sky Woman, Cousin Rose, and All My Relations, 2007, Seattle Art Museum, General Acquisition Fund, in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum and, to the right, Dorothy Grant (Haida) with Robert Davidson (Haida/Tlingit), Hummingbird Copper Dress, 1989, wool, Denver Art Museum Collection: Native Arts acquisition fund, 2010 at the Renwick Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Marie Watt, Seneca Nation of Indians, Blanket Stories: Three Sisters, Four Pelts, Sky Woman, Cousin Rose, and All My Relations, 2007, Seattle Art Museum, General Acquisition Fund,in honor of the 75th anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, at the Frist Art Museum/Photo by Patricia Leslie  

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Navajo artist, Second phase chief blanket, c. 1880, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Gift of Elissa and Paul Cahn, These blankets are valued today about as much as they were by the Navajo nation in the late 19th centuryl. They were often worn by chiefs and their wives/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/Shoshone-Bannock), Adaptation II, 2012, shoes designed by Christian Louboutin, leather, glass beads, porcupine quills, sterling silver cones, brass sequins, chicken feathers, cloth, deer rawhide, and buckskin, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Bequest of Virginia Doneghy

Label copy at the Renwick (this photo taken at the Frist) said Jamie Okuma began making "extravagant attire in which to attend powwows" leading to her " successful career creating wearable art." Her heels are her "way of reimaging Native couture." She planned a career in the fashion industry but her success as a beadworker took her in a different direction/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Apsáalooke (Crow) artist, Dress, ca. 1930, cotton, bead, bone, skin, wool, and colorant, Denver Art Museum Collection: The L. D. and Ruth Bax Collection,

From the label copy: "Elk-tooth dresses like this one are important symbols of prestige for Apsáalooke women. Because they can have as many as 500 elk teeth meticulously sewn into the bodice, and because the maker only uses the two canine teeth of the bull elk, a dress like this reflects not only a woman’s sewing skills, but, as importantly, her male family members’ hunting prowess. Today, few elk-tooth dresses are made entirely from real teeth—there are acceptable commercial substitutions—but the dress endures as an object of significance and cultural pride."/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Detail of Jolene Richard, Tuscarora, b. 1956 ...the sky is darkening ..., 2018, courtesy of the artist with special thanks to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Tuscarora women made beadwork of passenger pigeons  which were hunted to extinction by1902, according to the label copy. Beadwork by Tuscarora women helped them survive when they were forced to leave their homes in North Carolina in the early 18th century/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Jolene Richard, Tuscarora, b. 1956 ...the sky is darkening ..., 2018, courtesy of the artist with special thanks to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Apsaalooke (Crow), Infant Boy's Coat, c. 1890, buckskin, cloth, glass beads, sinew, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, pictured at the Renwick with Hide Cradleboard, c. 1890 by a Kiowa artist, attributed to Tahdo Ahtone, 1879-1961, Denver Museum of Nature and Science. By riding in the cradleboard upright, the child could absorb more of her language and culture/Photo by Patricia Leslie

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Apsaalooke (Crow), Infant Boy's Coat, c. 1890, buckskin, cloth, glass beads, sinew, Denver Museum of Nature and Science. At the Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Hide Cradleboard, c. 1890 by a Kiowa artist, attributed to Tahdo Ahtone, 1879-1961, Denver Museum of Nature and Science.at the Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Keri Ataumbi (Kiowa/Comanche) and Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/Shoshone-Bannock), Adornment: Iconic Perceptions, 2014, antique glass, 24-karat electroplated beads, buckskin, 18-karat yellow gold, sterling silver, wampum shell, freshwater pearls, rose and brilliant-cut diamonds and diamond beads, diamond briolettes, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Gift of funds from The Duncan and Nivin MacMillan Foundation/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The artists pay tribute to Pocahontas, drawing inspiration from 17th century engravings by Simon van de Passe and Thomas Sully’s classic 1852 painting,

 

Anita Fields, Osage, b. 1951, with her coat entitled It's In Our DNA, It's Who We Are, 2018, Minneapolis Institute of Art. At the Renwick Gallery, Feb. 20, 2020.  Printed inside the coat is the Treaty of 1808 when the Osage Indians ceded almost 2.5 million acres including the state of Arkansas and almost all of Missouri to the U.S. government for cash/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Anita Fields, Osage, b. 1951, It's In Our DNA, It's Who We Are, 2018, Minneapolis Institute of Art, at the Frist Art Museum/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Joan Hill (Muskogee Creek and Cherokee), Women’s Voices at the Council, 1990, acrylic on canvas, Gift of the artist on behalf of the Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women, 1990, Oklahoma State Art Collection, courtesy of the Oklahoma Arts Council.

From the label copy: "Women’s Voices at the Council, part of a series that Joan Hill began in 1971 during the Vietnam War (1965–75), depicts multiple generations of Native women and the power they hold to decide between war and peace. Hill focuses attention on essential elements of women’s regalia including turtle shell leggings, and she presents Muskogee/Cherokee cultural aesthetics, symbols, and meanings. She juxtaposes the white background, a Cherokee symbol of peace, with a red disk, possibly symbolizing a threat of war."

This was my second favorite of the show. The contrasts, the colors, the mixture of generations, their positions, the silhouettes, and the solemnity of the time. While the women discuss, the men (to the left) prepare to battle. Leave it to the women to bring peace!
 
Four of the artists at the Renwick Gallery, Feb. 20, 2020. In the white shirt is Anita Fields and to her left is Kelly Church/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Kelly Church (Ottawa/Pottawatomi) with her Sustaining Traditions—Digital Memories, 2018, at the Renwick, Feb. 20, 2020. Black ash, sweetgrass, Rit dye, copper, vial EAB, and flash drive with black ash teachings/Photo by Patricia Leslie


According to the label copy: "The green in this basket represents the emerald ash borer. This beautiful insect has destroyed ash trees, essential to making ash baskets, throughout the Upper Midwest. Placed within this basket, which is shaped like a Fabergé egg is a flash drive containing what Kelly Church describes as 'all the teachings of the past, all of the things happening today, and all of the things we need to do in the future to sustain this tradition [basket weaving].'”

 The Frist Art Museum, Dec. 23, 2019/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Marguerite Vincent Lawinonkie Wendat (Huron), Moccasins, 1838/1847-1854, Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY, Gift of Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Lou-ann Neel, b. 1963, Childhood, 2013. According to the label, these are miniature photographs of the artist and 3,000 other children who were removed from their Native homes and sent to residential schools where they were forced to assimilate into Euro-American culture. All together, the images comprise the artist's nephew, Daniel (below) in regalia for his naming ceremony.  Ms. Neel's work was exhibited at the Frist only.

Lou-ann Neel, b. 1963, Childhood, 2013. The artist's nephew, Daniel.  (See description above.)

Lou-ann Neel, b. 1963, Childhood, 2013, Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Dana Claxton, b. 1959, Buffalo Bone China, 1997, video and mixed media, collection of the MacKenzie Art Gallery. In the 1860s the U.S. government began killing 30 million buffalo to drive Natives onto reservations.  It took 30 years to kill almost 30 million buffalo, leaving only 493. Europeans used their bones to make fine china. The video features the artist smashing buffalo bone china, paying tribute to the power of the buffalo and the endurance of the Natives.  In the center are pieces of the broken white china. At the Frist only/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 See description above/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Jennie Ross Cobb, Cherokee, 1881-1959, Cherokee Female Seminary Graduating Class, 1902, courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society. Ms. Cobb was the first known Native American woman photographer in the U.S. Her pictures contrast with the stereotypes most other photographers made of Native American women, according to the label copy.  Although the location of the seminary was not given, I believe it is the "centerpiece of Northeastern State University, located in Tahlequah, Oklahoma," as identified by Wikipedia. The white dots in the photo of the photo are reflections of overhanging lights at the Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Slavey (Dene), Dog blanket, c. 1878-1900, McCord Stewart Museum. Used for warmth and "announcement" by sled drivers of teams' arrival to deliver mail, news, and supplies. Indigenous artists.today are reviving these colorful, jingle-jangle blankets/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Anishinaabe, Jingle dress and headband, c. 1900, Cass County Historical Society, Cass County Museum. Used as "healing dresses" today and yesteryear/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Osage artists, ribbon blanket (left), c. 1950 and child's ribbon-work blanket, c. 1915 which belong to Anita Fields (the blanket on the left) and Julia Karen Lookout, both of the Osage Nation. See the backs below.  At the Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The backs of the children's blankets (seen above) with Anita Fields's It's In Our DNA, It's Who We Are, 2018, at the Frist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Zoe Urness, Tlingit, b. 1984, December 5, 2016, No Spiritual Surrender, 2016, courtesy of the artist. Near a campsite at Standing Rock Reservation in the Dakotas. Thousands from around the world gathered  to protest the Dakota Pipeline designed to carry oil but a threat to lives, damaging water supplies. Although the temperature that day "had hit forty below," the artist says on the label, "I had the camera under my armpit to keep the batteries warm.  I watched this gathering of veterans of military service, from all over the nation, approaching." She moved quickly to take "a one-arm shot." 

Rather than a photograph, this looks like a still from a horror movie. The reds, the blacks, the greys and whites combine with nature.to deliver a powerful message. My Number One Favorite in the show. It is a knockout, summoning up all the power of the protestors who march towards the viewer and summon: "Join us! We shall overcome!" At the Frist.

I was lucky enough to be able to see this intriguing and wide-ranging exhibition, the first major museum exhibition devoted to art by Native Women in two cities, in Nashville at the Frist Art Museum at Christmas, and in Washington at the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery in February before coronavirus closed the show early.

Most of the pieces shown here were displayed at both museums, but the larger galleries at the Frist (it included 115 pieces; the Renwick, 82) permitted more displays of textiles, baskets, beadwork, pottery, painting, sculpture, video, apparel, and installation art with a broader visual experience for some.

Works by artists from the U.S. and Canada, from ancient times to present day, were chosen by a curatorial team led by Jill Ahlberg Yohe from the Minneapolis Institute of Art (the organizing institution) and Teri Greeves, a Kowa artist and scholar.

They worked closely with an Exhibition Advisory Board of 20 Native women skilled in mixed media who provided guidance for the show, titled Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists. It was "a radical shift in curatorial methodology," remarked Ms. Ahlberg at the Washington opening.


It is divided by three themes:  legacy, relationships, and power which together present "the unique heritage and culture of various Indian tribes and communities."

Visitors from toddlers on up were fascinated by the extraordinary presentation and differences of what their heritage means to these Native Women. 

Smithsonian American Art Museum Director Stephanie Stebich at the opening of Hearts Of Our People at the Renwick Gallery, Feb. 20, 2020/Photo by Patricia Leslie

At the February opening in Washington, Smithsonian American Art Museum Director Stephanie Stebich remarked that the timing of the exhibition in Washington to fall in the centennial celebration when American women got the right to vote was not just a coincidence. 

To compare the ways the two museums assembled and displayed the art was fascinating; highly recommended whenever the chance comes along to compare the same exhibition in two different locations.

My impression that many (most?) living artists require their works to be specifically displayed, according to certain measurements and placements in galleries, was changed by this show since placements, heights, and juxtapositions varied from one place to another.

It is a shame, a shame (it bears repeating) that coronavirus will prevent many from seeing this magnificent, inspiring show. The Renwick will just have to bring it back.

Audio tours with several of the artists are found at the Renwick website. 

Most of the labels were multi-lingual with translations in the native language of the artist.
 
Grants from the Henry Luce Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities made the presentation possible.  



A catalog of the exhibition is available for $39.95. 
What: Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists 

When:  Native Women Artists is set to close at the Renwick May 17, 2020 and likely cannot be extended since it moves to the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa for viewing June 28 – September 20, 2020, The Renwick is closed by coronavirus until July 2, 2020, according to the website. It is usually open from 10 a.m.– 5:30 p.m. every day.

Where: The Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery, 1661 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20006, at the White House 17th Street block, adjacent to Blair House.

Admission: No charge

Metro stations: Farragut North or Farragut West

For more information: (202) 633-7970 (recorded) or (202) 633-2850

patricialesli@gmail.com