Seattle is first U.S. stop for Picasso exhibit

When the Musée National Picasso, Paris, closed its doors in August for a $28 million renovation, the scoop was that its 5,000 artworks by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) would be locked away for more than two years.

The museum would stop lending out Picasso artworks, The Associated Press reported, while experts updated, computerized and restored its inventory.

Well, someone somewhere along the line changed his or her mind.

And the Seattle Art Museum is the first American beneficiary of that change of heart.

"Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris," an exhibit of more than 150 works of art, from paintings and sculptures to prints, drawings and photographs, opens at SAM on Oct. 8 and will be on display through Jan. 9, 2011.

The exhibit will cover every phase in Picasso's protean career, from the dawn of the 20th century through works dating from the early 1970s, including his 1970 self-portrait "The Matador."

SAM director Derrick Cartwright calls this "a once-in-a-lifetime chance for a large public to view these important objects in Seattle."

Added Chiyo Ishikawa, co-curator with Michael Darling of the show's Seattle stop: "The exhibition presents an entire sweep of Picasso's career, documenting the full range of his unceasing inventiveness and creative process."

"Picasso never liked to rest on his laurels," Darling said. "This prompted him to always move on before any one expressive mode began to run thin."

Highlights will include "La Celestina" (from his famous Blue Period), "The Two Brothers" (from his Pink Period) and the exuberant "Two Women Running on the Beach (La Course)" from 1922.

"Portrait of Dora Maar" (1937) finds him taking a multiplaned approach to the human figure — in this case, his mistress Dora Maar, a surrealist photographer. Jonathan Jones, writing in The Guardian's "Portrait of the Week" column, ascribed to the painting "the kind of leap of perception that caricaturists loved to parody in Picasso, and that enables his art to say two or 200 things at once. ... Her presence transcends the physical."

The most unusual thing about the Musée Picasso's collection is that it comprises works that Picasso kept for himself. This is the artist's personal record of his eight-decade-long career.

The Musée National Picasso, Paris, opened in Paris' Marais neighborhood in 1985. Housed in a converted 17th-century mansion, the museum has room to display only 300 or fewer works at a time — a clear source of frustration for museum director Anne Baldassari, who told The Associated Press, "We can't continue like this."

Along with expanding exhibit space, renovations will address "electrical problems," enhance accessibility for disabled visitors and create additional venues for student activities. The museum is scheduled to reopen in early 2012.

In the meantime, "Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris" just closed in Helsinki, Finland's Ateneum Art Museum, where it attracted record crowds, and is about to open in Moscow's Pushkin Museum. The exhibit likely will go to two more U.S. cities — still to be confirmed — after it leaves Seattle.

Michael Upchurch: mupchurch@seattletimes.com