Modernist Masterpieces Debut at Crystal Bridges
-by Antoinette Grajeda
Paley CollectionI'm not sure I'll ever get used to walking around a corner just to be greeted by a painting or photograph I've only seen in books. But this is what sometimes happens when I'm at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Even if I don't recognize an artwork, I am often familiar with its creator's name.
The museum's latest traveling exhibition, The William S. Paley Collection: A Taste for Modernism, includes works by Matisse, Degas, and Cézanne. During a recent tour of the exhibit, I found myself staring at Picasso's Boy Leading a Horse. I was standing close enough to it that I could have reached out and touched it – but of course I didn't because I know the rules. :)
What struck me about this painting was not just the size of the canvas (approximately 7 feet tall and 4 feet wide), but the fact that it was not at all the kind of work I had in mind from Picasso. When I think of the Spanish painter, I think of Guernica, one of his most famous works where the people and animals all sort of meld together. You don't have to guess about the images in Boy Leading a Horse because the painting depicts exactly that – a young boy leading a white horse without the use of a rein.
The new exhibit has plenty of other pieces of art to examine. You can hear assistant curator Manuela Well-Off-Man's thoughts about some of those works in this recent Ozarks at Large report.
