Fogg to Open Picasso Exhibit; Sketches to Highlight Display

The first United States exhibit since 1911 devoted exclusively to Pablo Picasso's drawings will open at the Fogg Art Museum later this month.

The 100-piece exhibit--which will run from February 20 through April 5 and then travel to the Art Insitute of Chicago and the Philadelphia Museum of Art--is composed of works from more than 50 museums and private collections throughout the world.

One-fourth of the drawings, spanning Picasso's career from age 13 to a few months before his death in 1973, have never been exhibited anywhere. More than one-third have never been displayed in the United States.

Other Picasso displays, such as one that appeared at the Museum of Fine Arts in New York this summer, have included other artists' work. The Fogg exhibit, however, features only Picasso's drawings.

Diane W. Upright, assistant professor of Fine Arts, said this week the focus on drawings will provide new insight into Picasso's works. "The real core of his work is his art as a draftsman. The drawings reveal what Picasso is all about," she said.

"Picasso was really primarily a master of line," Peter L. Walsh, public relations officer of the Fogg, said this week. The showing will have "international significance in terms of scholarship and originality," he added.

Walsh said he expects the exhibit to boost Fogg attendance, adding that it is "among the major shows we've done this decade." Upright, however, said the show is not of the same "blockbuster quality" as the New York exhibit because many of the drawings are not well known.

In addition to the display, various Picasso specialists will speak at a symposium on February 21, William Robin, director of the department of paintings and sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts in New York, Robert Rosenblum, professor of modern European art at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, Jean Sutherland Boggs, director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Theodore Reff, professor of art history at Columbia University, and Leo Steinberg, professor of art at the University of Pennsylvania, will each discuss his original research on Picasso's art.

"They are all recognized Picasso experts, and they will all present information that has never been presented before," Upright said.