Portraits of Parisian art dealer Ambroise Vollard, featured in a Hood Museum of Art exhibit that opened to the public on Saturday, introduce viewers to the neoclassical black and white aquatint etchings that Pablo Picasso used in his prints.
The Hood is one of a handful of museums to own the complete set of Picasso’s “Vollard Suite,” a series of 100 etchings made between 1930 and 1937. Rarely seen in its entirety, the exhibit includes step-by-step prints showing the composition process for one of its most famous works, “Blind Minotaur Led by a Little Girl,” and “Minotauromachy,” a huge print showing the half-bull, half-man monster stumbling into a town square.
Hood director Michael Taylor said many scholars consider this the greatest etching of the 20th century.
“We need great works of art to reach students and get them excited about the Hood,” Taylor said. “I think this show does that.”
Vollard was the first to give Picasso gallery space but turned the artist away when Picasso moved toward Cubism. Years later, he commissioned the series as an apology to the painter, who had gone elsewhere to achieve success.
Images of an idealized sculptor and young woman admiring statues evoke one of Picasso’s affairs, while Minotaur imagery emerges following his subsequent divorce. The monster reflects not only an artistic fascination with the legend at the time, but his self-image, Taylor said. Violent and grotesque scenes alternate with works showing the monster as pathetic and sad.
“I think the ‘Vollard Suite’ is a like a visual diary,” Taylor said.
Many of the etchings are the product of Picasso’s imagined rivalry with dead masters like Goya and Rembrandt. Works by both are placed alongside the etchings they inspired.
Another exhibition that opened at the Hood this weekend, “Cubism and its Legacy,” complements the etchings and walks viewers from the movement’s early stages to other modern works influenced by Cubist thought. It includes Picasso’s “Guitar on a Table,” which exemplifies Cubist innovations with its fractured perspectives and stark geometry.
At the gallery’s opposite end, Mark Rothko’s “Lilac and Orange Over Ivory” displays his signature broad rectangles of color, the epitome of reductionism, which took root after Cubism.
Although Picasso’s work displays “aggressive” flatness, the painter never entirely stepped away from pictorial representations of the world, Taylor said.
“Picasso remained attuned to reality,” Taylor said. “He didn’t want to go into that void.”
Between Picasso’s early cubism and Rothko’s “visual sublime,” the introductory exhibition includes works by European and American artists influenced by Picasso’s innovative style.
“This is about the world of ideas, the world of culture,” Taylor said. “We don’t want our visitors to just feel like this is good for them.”
Sarah Powers, assistant curator for special projects, assembled the exhibition to complement the “Vollard Suite” etchings and provide context for viewers who may associate Picasso with Cubism and little else.
English professor Barbara Will, who teaches a modernism class, said that seeing a work of art like “Guitar on a Table,” known to have inspired Gertrude Stein, allows her students to make meaningful connections among literature, music and art.
Will recommended that students take their time to better appreciate the etchings’ detail. Magnifying glasses scattered on benches throughout the exhibit encourage close inspection.
Anthropology professor Alan Covey said the Hood reaches out to professors, crafting presentations for classes in the Bernstein Study-Storage Center. Last winter, Covey taught a class in which students designed an entire exhibition, deciding which objects to include and how to present them.
Staff-curated shows such as the Picasso exhibitions allow students to become involved behind the scenes.
“You can work with students to design shows but you can also bring your students into shows and critique them,” Covey said.
The museum runs anywhere between three and 12 exhibitions annually. Curators consider faculty preferences when choosing themes.
“We’re not the kind of museum that just puts art on the wall,” Taylor said.
This fall, the Hood will run several related workshops, tours, lectures and a black-and-white theme party for students on Oct. 2.
Both the “Vollard Suite” and “Cubism and its Legacy” exhibits will run through Dec. 20.