Blue Period

The Cleveland Museum of Art - which is world renowned (for the uninitiated) - has a new exhibit open: Picasso and Paper. 

It. Is. Fucking. Amazing. 

710 and I took a few hours out of our day yesterday to go see it. We assumed, being a Tuesday, the crowds would be more manageable. I suppose they were, but still had more folks there than I usually care to be around.  We were wrong. Kind of. 

It had a very healthy crowd, but even better, no field trips from schools. Ugh, kids!

We also assumed it would be a smaller exhibit. 

We were way wrong. 

It is extremely extensive, from his childhood, up into his 90s. I am NOT an art historian, so I was kind of amazed to find out he was alive until 1973. I mean, it's just one of those things I assumed everything he did was before my time here on Earth. 

It covers his pre-professional era, the Blue and Rose periods, Cubist, Impressionism and more. 

Again with the assumptions - but we figured every museum in the world lent everything Picasso related to this show. Again: wrong. To say Pablo was proficient would be the understatement of a lifetime. 

One piece was a doodle on a Paris-Soir front page over top of photos of Hitler. Honestly, nothing seemingly of substance. I says to 710, I says, "who has the wherewithal to preserve and save a doodle on a paper you'd toss the next day?".  Later in the exhibit, it tells tales of how Picasso never threw out one doodle or any iteration of his works. One piece and at least 123 prior sketches in some form. And when storage space would run out, he'd hang batches of them from the ceiling. So, this exhibit doesn't even scratch the surface of what is out there. 

I wouldn't say I'm a Picasso fan, but man, there were a lot of great pieces there. And each one I liked better than the last would come for different periods. 

I think what amazed me more than anything was the change in styles. 

Picasso drew this at the age of 13. The detail is amazing for an artist of any age. 

But later in his career, detail in human form took different meaning. 

There was a great film of him doing a painting on glass for a camera crew. Probably from the 50s when they had only a few hundred feet of film in the camera, meaning he had to complete a full painting in less than five minutes or so. 

I know 99.9% of you don't live in Cleveland, or plan on traveling here, but on the off chance you do or are, the exhibit is worth the price of admission to the special exhibit. The rest of the museum is free all year round. 

Song by: the Smithereens ft Belinda Carlisle