Nude Wringing Her Hair, 1952, by Pablo Picasso. Private collection. Oil on wood panel, 150.5 x 119.4 cm. Private Collection. © 2010 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York
Picasso Looks at Degas
June 13, 2010 - September 12, 2010
Named one of 2010’s Hot Exhibitions by
Harper’s Bazaar
Boston Globe Summer 2010 Preview
Focusing on two of the great artists of the modern period, this exhibition explores Pablo Picasso’s lifelong fascination with the life and work of Edgar Degas. This ground-breaking exhibition examines Degas through Picasso’s eyes and the ways his response varied over time from emulation to confrontation and parody to homage. The Clark is the exclusive North American venue for this exhibition which explores the depth of the Spanish artist’s fixation through dramatic pairings and groupings that have never been brought together in this ambitious way. Degas’s In a Café (L’Absinthe) (1875–76, Musée d’Orsay) is placed alongside Picasso’s Portrait of Sebastià Junyer i Vidal (1903, Los Angeles County Museum of Art); Picasso’s oil on canvas The Blue Room (Le Tub) (1901, Phillips Collection, Washington, DC) is paired with The Tub, (c. 1876–77. Bibliothèque de l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris), a monotype by Degas that may have served as a prototype; and Picasso’s 1905 Portrait of Benedetta Canals (1905, Museu Picasso, Barcelona) is hung beside Degas’s Woman with an Umbrella (Berthe Jeantaud) (c. 1876, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa).
The two artists shared a lifelong obsession with women that is seen in portraits of friends and images of singers, laundresses, ballet dancers, bathers, and prostitutes. While it is widely acknowledged that these are Degas’s signature themes, all are echoed in Picasso’s work. Usually identified as painters, both Degas and Picasso were innovative sculptors, printmakers, and extraordinary draftsmen, and the exhibition uses the full range of media to examine Picasso’s reaction to the challenge of Degas.
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Following are a few of exhibition-related events happening at the Clark this summer. To stay on top of all that is happening with Picasso Looks at Degas (and all of the Clark’s programs), sign up for our E-NEWS.
June 12, 6 pm
Gala exhibition opening
Purchase tickets for the Summer Opening Gala and Night at the Museum Raffle.
June 13, 3 pm
Opening lecture and book signing with curators Elizabeth Cowling and Richard Kendall
Beginning June 18, 4 pm
Spanish Masters of Cinema film series
June 27, 11 am
Free Family Day
July 7, August 11, 5 pm
Cocktails with Picasso and Degas
July 11, 3 pm
Diana Widmaier Picasso in conversation with Richard Kendall
August 29, 3 pm
Picasso Looks at Degas, Renoir, Ingres…and Mantegna lecture by Gary Tinterow
Picasso Looks at Degas was organized by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and the Museu Picasso, Barcelona. It is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, and with the special cooperation of Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte.
