Wednesday, May 02, 2007

picasso exhibit at SF MOMA

yesterday i ventured out on free musuem today to SF MOMA. They have a Picasso exhibit through May 28. The main exhibit displays Picasso's influence on North American art. I love art passionately. However, I didn't get to study it at university at all. So I'm woefully ignorant of what is probably common knowledge to many others.

This exhibition was amazing. What did I learn? Max Weber was the one who purchased a Picasso painting, Still Life (i believe), and brought it to North America. Max had Picasso's first exhibition at his gallery in NYC in 1911.

I learned that I *love* the earlier Jackson Pollock work that was so heavily influenced by Picasso. I believe it was 1946 that Jackson started to get his drip style on. You can see this in his painting Galaxy which is heavily Picasso-influenced.

Picasso influenced Max Weber (we covered that), Arshile Gorky (Armenian born American), ? Graham, Willem De Kooning, Stuart Davis, David Smith, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jasper Jones to name a few. Jasper was the only out of these artists who was established in style and returned to study Picasso in later life.

There was a mini-exhibit on the second floor called, The Hidden Picasso. It featured examinations of a few paintings that had been painted over by another painting. Artists have reused canvases for many reasons over the years.

What did I learn? Well, I learned that Picasso likes his can-can dancers. Werd. If you don't believe me, you are welcome to go see for your bad self. Hee hee.

No comments: