Sunday, May 15, 2011

Picasso, Come And Gone


looking out
Originally uploaded by Teckelcar
Today was the very last day you could see Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris at the only east coast exhibition of its seven city international tour. How a museum in a city the size of Richmond beat those in New York and Boston is a complete mystery to me, I'm just happy that I was able to go.

I have been mulling over a visit not long after the initial announcement. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is not at all far and it would be silly of me not to at least try to see this rather landmark exhibit. Then a few weeks ago, out of the blue, Jake mentioned to me he would like to see the Picasso exhibit. A week later Rebecca saw a billboard and asked if she could go see Picasso.


beautiful bunny
Originally uploaded by Teckelcar
Having two children independently request to see the show got me moving. The hard part would be coordinating their schedules. On my own I would in all likelihood go midweek in the morning, but that would not be possible with two school age children in tow. Which left us with the weekends. With only two left I decided that the penultimate weekend would be the better choice.

So we settled on Mother's day, sometime in the afternoon. I was able to buy the tickets in advance, guaranteeing us admission for when we wanted to go. And it was a good thing I had bought the tickets in advance, because the ticket holders line was ridiculously long.


scary rabbit
Originally uploaded by Teckelcar
Rebecca was a bit bored at first, the works at the beginning of the exhibit had a very muted color palette and were rather drab. About halfway through Rebecca started to perk as the the canvases became more. Jake meanwhile, is very much like me and we both carefully examined each work.

I wish I could share images of the exhibit, but photography was expressly forbidden in the galleries. So instead I have pictures of "Large Leaping Hare" by Barry Flanagan, a sculpture that was a big hit with Jake and Rebecca. You can see them silhouetted in front of the big picture window by the Hare in the top photo. The middle picture shows some of the details in the gilded bronze statue.

As for the last picture...

Rebecca requested that I snap a photo of her being menaced by the huge beast.

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