Philly Museum of Art shows to double your pleasure
Fred B. Adelson
For the Daily Journal
Max Bialystock, the down-on-his-luck Broadway producer in "The Producers," boldly proclaimed: "When you've got it, flaunt it, flaunt it!"
So the department of prints, drawings, and photographs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is spotlighting some of its distinguished holdings with two substantive exhibitions: "Picasso Prints: Myths, Minotaurs, and Muses" and "Artificial Light: Flash Photography in the Twentieth Century." On view until August 3, both shows focus on content not hype.
At a press preview, Innis Shoemaker, senior curator of prints, drawings and photographs, proudly pointed out that her department alone has "more than half of the museum's collection extending from medieval manuscripts to the present." In addition, it also includes more than 300 works by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), the most of any single artist at the museum.
With fresh eyes, two young scholars individually looked at the department's extensive collection and put together separate shows in the Muriel and Philip Berman Gallery (prints) and the Honickman Gallery (photography) on the museum's lower level. John Ittmann, curator of prints, delightfully acknowledged: "These curatorial fellows see what we don't see."
"Picasso Prints: Myths, Minotaurs, and Muses" was organized by Nora Lambert, the curatorial fellow working with prints. Her show focuses on Picasso's admiration for classical antiquity that emerged with his first trip to Rome in 1917. Picasso's interest in classicism wasn't a mere passing fancy but a constant source of inspiration.
Using mythology and various ancient sources, the prolific artist tells old stories with autobiographic underpinnings. Lambert noted that Picasso was "like a sponge (who) absorbs everything and infuses it with his personal life, an active personal life." If Picasso were around today, he would unquestionably be a regular of TMZ gossip.
This solo exhibition of 35 prints and several other sundry objects covers the period from 1921 to 1959. It is obvious how printmaking played such an important role in Picasso's career, which is typically dominated by his paintings and sculptures. The earliest images in the show look more like pen and ink line drawings than prints, however. It took Picasso a few years before he used the etching process to stunning tonal effect.
Most of the works on view date from the 1930s, a fascinating and turbulent time that coincides with the artist's relationship with Marie-Therese Walter, the third muse and love of his life.
In 1927, at the age of 45, Picasso happened to spot Marie-Therese, a 17-year old blonde, in front of a Parisian department store. Not long after their love affair began, the artist made "Marie-Therese in Profile," an intimately close-up image emphasizing her classic Grecian features that had so captivated the Spanish artist.
The Minotaur, a Greek monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull, became the artist's significant alter-ego.
He creatively used the mythological creature — a product of an unnatural union between the queen of Crete and a bull — for his own myth-making. Of course, the bull also relates to his long-standing fascination for corrida, the traditional Spanish bullfight.
For Picasso, the ritualistic bullfight was a metaphor for his life, seeing the bull/minotaur as unbridled creativity and unrestrained gratification. Lambert stated: "He depicted his lovers and muses as hapless victims of the creature's brutal force." Marie-Therese was "the minotaur's lover, victim, and savior."
Interestingly, in "Minotaur Caressing a Sleeping Woman," the creature is leaning over his sleeping muse, suggesting attraction, voyeurism, or even pending doom.
Francoise Gilot, Picasso's lover from 1944 to 1953 and mother of Claude and Paloma Picasso, recalled the artist had later described this scene to her and said: "He's studying her; trying to read her thoughts ... It's hard to say whether he wants to wake her or kill her."
"Blind Minotaur Guided by a Girl at Night" is a most imaginative interpretation of the myth. The Minotaur was never blind, but Picasso blended several mythological stories to create a fascinating and provocative image. It is obvious the classical profile of the little girl is, indeed, Marie-Therese.
The relationship between Picasso and Marie-Therese disintegrated with her unplanned pregnancy in 1935. The artist referred to this as "the worst time of my life." As his mistress's pregnancy became obvious, it deeply enraged Olga Khokhlova (1891-1955), whom Picasso had married in 1918. Though divorce was contemplated, it was never legally finalized.
Picasso's most ambitious and well-known print is "Minotauromachy" (Minotaur battle) of 1935, blending mythology and the Spanish bullfight. The growling horse is Olga, who "became so violent over his infidelities that she had to be removed from his house," commented Lambert.
The four attendant females have the youthful features of Marie-Therese.
Looming over the entire scene is the Minotaur (Picasso) on the right and a Christ-like figure (perhaps another self reference) on a ladder at the left; both are watching the turmoil unfold.
One of the final works in the show is "The Dream and Lie of Franco," a pair of prints which was initially made on Jan. 8, 1937 (date is etched on the plate).
An image shows General Francisco Franco gored by a bull. Six months later, in June, Picasso added four scenes depicting women and children fleeing the recent devastation at Guernica, the civilian town that was bombed on April 26 by the German air force with General Franco's permission. These strip-like cartoon images were originally sold by Picasso at the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 Paris World's Fair to raise funds to benefit the Spanish Republican opposition to Franco's fascism.
In the same building hung "Guernica," his newly completed and monumental canvas that became an iconic antiwar statement.
The department's other special exhibit deals with photography in an adjoining gallery; it was organized by Amanda Bock, project assistant curator. Dating from 1909 to 2010, the 70 prints by 35 artists provide a survey of how flash photography has enhanced what the camera is able to do, using either an accessory unit or something that was built into the camera body.
The show features many celebrated names in the history of 20th-century photography, from photojournalists to fine artists; all are represented by images shot without natural light no matter how obvious or subtle it may seem.
Significantly, the underlying advantage of flash photography is that it makes darkness visible.
Bock noted: "Together these photographers reveal our world to us as we rarely experience it ourselves, frozen in time and illuminated by an uncompromising flood of light."
The use of artificial lighting began during the Civil War with magnesium flash powder, which was quite dangerous and very messy.
In the 1920s, mass-produced bulbs made on-location photography much safer and enabled a photographer to be somewhat more candid. Peter Barberie, curator of photography, cautioned "flash is an approach not a process."
Lewis Hine's photograph taken inside a Bowery mission is the oldest print in the show. He used a burst of ignited magnesium that would have created a blinding flash to illuminate its middle-of-the-night subject.
Fred B. Adelson is a professor of art history at Rowan University. Contact him at fbadelson@gmail.com.
http://www.philamuseum.org/
'Picasso Prints: Myths, Minotaurs, and Muses' and 'Artificial Light: Flash Photography in the Twentieth Century' through Aug. 3, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Call (215) 763-8100 or visit philamuseum.org