The Clark Art Institute has opened for the summer season with exhibits by Pablo Picasso and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
Picasso — a 20th century titan known for his mystifying, abstract portraits. But the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown this summer takes a look at how the artist became interested in and experimented with large-scale printmaking.
Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Jay Clarke says the exhibit “Picasso: Encounters” explores 35 large-scale prints from private and public collections and two paintings, including his seminal 1901 “Self Portrait” and the renowned “Portrait of Dora Maar,” finished in 1937.
“There is a myth of the artist,” Clarke says, “as this amazing, individual genius.”
Clarke says it’s all about Picasso’s muses.
“Who are the people that promoted and allowed him to become the artist we now know of today?” Clarke says.
Following World War I, Picasso became involved in theater design. He met his first wife, and muse, the Ukrainian dancer Olga Khokhlova. They moved to Paris and engaged with the elite, forever changing Picasso. It launched his success in the art market.
“And the exhibition began sort of in my mind thinking about this one very unusual print that we have in our collection, which I will show you later, called ‘The ‘Frugal Repast,’” Clarke says. “And it’s a very amazing, rare, beautiful impression. And I always thought it was interesting that it was in the Clark because didn’t, we had only one other print by Picasso, and it was very different from it. And I always thought, since it was his first great, monumental print, wouldn’t it be great to see an entire career of prints.”
The exhibit is open until August 27th.
That is pianist Jeewon Park playing on a Steinway piano designed by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. It’s ornate with Greco-Pompeian-style trim, a parchment-lined lid with signatures of the great performers who have played it, and delicate fabrics.
Co-curator Kathy Morris says the exhibit “Orchestrating Elegance: Alma-Tadema and Design” explores the relationship between Alma-Tadema and New York art collector and philanthropist Henry Marquand.
“And it’s kind of an extraordinary story. It’s an unique moment in Alma-Tadema’s career,” Morris says.
Marquand, one of the founders of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, built a mansion and commissioned Alma-Tadema to design the would-be famous music room in 1884. He set no cost limit for the project.
“There exists a number of really high-quality period photographs of what the room looked like because the room has long been gone,” Morris says.
The suite was decorated with veneers of ebony and cedar, accented with carved inlays of boxwood, ivory, abalone and mother-of-pearl. The piano cost roughly $50,000 alone.
His entire mansion cost $125,000.
“They could not find the words that they want to use to talk about the level of the craftsmanship, the inventiveness of the design,” Morris says.
The Clark later purchased the piano at auction in 1997 for $1.2 million – the most expensive piano sold at auction, second to John Lennon’s piano, which sold for $2.1 million in 2000.
The exhibition reunites 12 of 19 pieces from the original furniture suite, along with paintings, ceramics, textiles and sculptures from the room for the first time since Marquand’s estate was auctioned in 1903.
And of course, the piano.
That exhibit is open until September 4th.
This is Director Olivier Meslay’s first summer at the Clark Art Institute. Meslay says his goal is to attract people to visit and stay in the Berkshires for as long as possible.
“In this area – very tiny, little corner of Berkshires and south Vermont – there is plenty to see,” Meslay says. “You cannot come and see everything even, not even in two days.”
The Clark’s next exhibit features Helen Frankenthaler’s inventive approach to the woodcut, opening July 1st.
