Chicago Picasso | |
---|---|
Artist | Pablo Picasso |
Year | 1967 |
Medium | Sculpture, COR-TEN steel Fabricator: American Bridge Company |
Dimensions | 15 m(50 ft) |
Location | Daley Plaza, Chicago |
41°53′01″N87°37′48″W / 41.88361°N 87.62997°W |
The Chicago Picasso (often just The Picasso) is an untitled monumental sculpture by Pablo Picasso in Daley Plaza in Chicago, Illinois. The 1967 installation of The Picasso, "precipitated an aesthetic shift in civic and urban planning, broadening the idea of public art beyond the commemorative." [1]
The COR-TEN steel structure, dedicated on August 15, 1967, in the civic plaza in the Chicago Loop, is 50 feet (15.2 m) tall and weighs 162 short tons (147 t). [2] The Cubist sculpture by Picasso, who later said that it represented the head of his Afghan Hound, was the first monumental abstract public artwork in Downtown Chicago, and has become a well-known landmark. Publicly accessible, it is known for its inviting jungle gym-like characteristics. [3] Visitors to Daley Plaza can often be seen climbing on and sliding down the base of the sculpture.
The sculpture was commissioned in 1963 by the architects of the Chicago Civic Center (now known as the Richard J. Daley Center), a modernist government office building and courthouse (also clad in COR-TEN), with an open granite-paved plaza. The commission was facilitated by the architect William Hartmann of the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. [4] Picasso completed a maquette of the sculpture in 1965, and approved a final model of the sculpture in 1966. The cost of constructing the sculpture was $351,959.17 (equivalent to $3.2 million in 2022 [5] ), paid mostly by three charitable foundations: the Woods Charitable Fund, the Chauncey and Marion Deering McCormick Foundation, and the Field Foundation of Illinois. Picasso himself was offered payment of $100,000 but refused, stating that he wanted to make his work a gift to the city. [6]
An architect who worked on the Daley Center project, Richard Bennett, wrote Picasso a poem asking him to make the sculpture. [7] Picasso accepted saying "You know I never accept commissions to do any sort of work, but in this case I am involved in projects for the two great gangster cities" (the other being Marseille, France).
The sculpture was fabricated by the American Bridge Company division of the United States Steel Corporation in Gary, Indiana using COR-TEN steel, before being disassembled and relocated to Chicago. [2] The steel for this statue was rolled in the USS Gary Works 160/210" plate mill, then the largest rolling mill of its kind in the world. Before fabrication of the final steel sculpture was started, a 3.5 meter (~12 feet) tall wooden model was constructed for Picasso to approve; this was eventually sent to the Gary Career Center. [8] Ground was broken in Daley Plaza for the construction of the sculpture on May 25, 1967. [9]
The efforts of the City of Chicago to publicize the sculpture — staging a number of press events before the sculpture was completed, and displaying the maquette without a copyright notice — were cited as evidence in a 1970 U.S. District Court case where the judge ruled that the city's actions had resulted in the sculpture being dedicated to the public domain. [6]
The sculpture was initially met with controversy. [10] Before the Picasso sculpture, public sculptural artwork in Chicago was mainly of historical figures. [4] One derisive Chicago City Council alderman, John Hoellen, immediately proposed replacing it with a statue of Chicago Cubs baseball great Ernie Banks, [11] and publicist Algis Budrys erected a giant pickle on the proposed site for his client, Pickle Packers International. [12] There was speculation on the subject, which has ranged from a bird, or aardvark to Picasso's pet Afghan Hound, a baboon head, [13] the Egyptian deity Anubis, [14] or Sylvette David, one of his models.
Newspaper columnist Mike Royko, covering the unveiling of the sculpture, wrote: "Interesting design, I'm sure. But the fact is, it has a long stupid face and looks like some giant insect that is about to eat a smaller, weaker insect." Royko did credit Picasso with understanding the soul of Chicago. "Its eyes are like the eyes of every slum owner who made a buck off the small and weak. And of every building inspector who took a wad from a slum owner to make it all possible. ... You'd think he'd been riding the L all his life." [15]
At a reception for the unveiling of a large piece of public sculpture commissioned by a New York University, Picasso told Stanley Coren that the head of the sculpture is an abstract representation of his Afghan Hound named Kabul. [16]
Right now I have an Afghan Hound named Kabul. He is elegant, with graceful proportions, and I love the way he moves. I put a representation of his head on a statue that I created for Daley Plaza in Chicago and I do think of him sometimes while I am in my studio. [16]
Some have speculated it may have been inspired by a French woman, Sylvette David, now known as Lydia Corbett, who posed for Picasso in 1954. Then 19 years old and living in Vallauris, France, Corbett would accompany her artist boyfriend as he delivered chairs made of metal, wood and rope. One of those deliveries was to Picasso, who was struck by her high ponytail and long neck. "He made many portraits of her. At the time, most people thought he was drawing the actress Brigitte Bardot. But in fact, he was inspired by [Corbett]", Picasso's grandson Olivier Widmaier Picasso told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2004.[ citation needed ]
"I think the Chicago Sculpture was inspired by her", said the grandson, author of Picasso, the Real Family Story. Picasso made 40 works inspired by her, said the grandson, including The Girl Who Said No, reflecting their platonic relationship. The quality of the Picasso sculpture inspired other artists such as Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, Claes Oldenburg and Henry Moore.[ citation needed ]
In the 1970s Jacqueline Picasso explained to Neil Thomas, an Australian lady, it was simply a male baboon viewed from head-on. "Picasso loved the way the creature changed as you viewed it from different angles"; it was part of a continuation of his lifelong inspiration from Africa.[ citation needed ]
There was an ongoing dialogue between Picasso's sculpture and his painting. [17] A further possible influence could lie in his portraits of Jacqueline herself, made in the early 1960s, specifically Bust of a Woman (Jacqueline) from May 1962 (Zervos XX, 243, Private Collection). [18] The historian Patricia Stratton has made a convincing case for Jacqueline Roque Picasso as the model for the Chicago sculpture. [19]
The Picasso was the site of an August 23, 1968, press conference in which Yippies Jerry Rubin, Phil Ochs, and others were arrested after nominating a pig — Pigasus — for president of the United States. This event was held days before the opening of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which became known for its anti-Vietnam war protests. [20]
The sculpture was mentioned (and appears) in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers during the chase scene leading to the Richard J. Daley Center. It can also be seen briefly in the 1993 film The Fugitive , as Harrison Ford, playing Richard Kimble, and his pursuers run across the plaza, and in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off as people in and under a reviewing stand dance to a song sung by Matthew Broderick, who plays Bueller. The sculpture also makes an appearance in the 1988 film Switching Channels starring Kathleen Turner, Burt Reynolds and Christopher Reeve.
The Chicago Picasso became and continues to be a well-known meeting spot for Chicagoans. Depending on the season and time of the month, there are musical performances, farmers' markets, a Christkindlmarkt, and other Chicago affairs which are held around the Picasso in Daley Plaza.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and the anti-war painting Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian air forces during the Spanish Civil War.
Grant Park is a large urban park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Located within the city's central business district, the 319-acre (1.29 km2) park's features include Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum Campus.
The Richard J. Daley Center, also known by its open courtyard Daley Plaza and named after longtime mayor Richard J. Daley, is the premier civic center of the City of Chicago in Illinois. The Center's modernist skyscraper primarily houses offices and courtrooms for the Cook County Circuit Courts, Cook County State's Attorney and additional office space for the City and the County. It is adjacent to the neoclassical City Hall-County Building, also on the plaza. The open granite-paved plaza used for gatherings, protests, and events is also the site of the Chicago Picasso, a gift to the city from the artist.
The Musée Picasso is an art gallery located in the Hôtel Salé in rue de Thorigny, in the Marais district of Paris, France, dedicated to the work of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). The museum collection includes more than 5,000 works of art and tens of thousands of archived pieces from Picasso's personal repository, including the artist's photographic archive, personal papers, correspondence, and author manuscripts. A large portion of items were donated by Picasso's family after his death, in accord with the wishes of the artist, who lived in France from 1905 to 1973.
Events from the year 1954 in art.
Weathering steel, often referred to by the genericised trademark COR-TEN steel and sometimes written without the hyphen as corten steel, is a group of steel alloys which were developed to eliminate the need for painting by forming a stable external layer of rust.
Flamingo, created by noted American artist Alexander Calder, is a 53-foot-tall (16 m) stabile located in the Federal Plaza in front of the Kluczynski Federal Building in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It was commissioned by the United States General Services Administration and was unveiled in 1974, although Calder's signature on the sculpture indicates it was constructed in 1973.
Monument with Standing Beast is a sculpture by Jean Dubuffet previously located in front of the Helmut Jahn designed James R. Thompson Center in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Its location was across the street from Chicago City Hall to the South and diagonal across the street from the Daley Center to the southeast. It is a 29-foot (8.8 m) white fiberglass work of art. The piece is a 10-ton or 20,000 pounds (9,100 kg) work. It was unveiled on November 28, 1984. It was dismantled in the spring of 2024 and was bound for a state warehouse.
Miró's Chicago is a sculpture by Joan Miró in Brunswick Plaza, Chicago, United States. It is 39 feet (12 m) tall, and is made of steel, wire mesh, concrete, bronze, and ceramic tile.
The University Village is a complex of three apartment buildings located in Greenwich Village in the Lower Manhattan-part of New York City. The complex is owned by New York University and was built in the 1960s as part of the university's transition to a residential college. It is composed of 505 LaGuardia Place, a co-op that does not house students, and Silver Tower I and Silver Tower II, which house faculty and graduate students of NYU. The buildings were designed by modern architects James Ingo Freed and I. M. Pei, and the central plaza contains a sculpture by Carl Nesjär and Pablo Picasso. In 2008 the complex became a New York City designated landmark.
Philip A. Hart Plaza, in downtown Detroit, is a city plaza along the Detroit River. It is located more or less on the site at which Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac landed in 1701 when he founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, the settlement that became Detroit. In 2011, the Detroit-Wayne County Port Authority opened its new cruise ship passenger terminal and dock at Hart Plaza, adjacent to the Renaissance Center, which receives major cruise ships such as the MS Hamburg and the Yorktown.
Pablo Eduardo is a Bolivian sculptor. He creates a wide variety of sculptures for many purposes. Although he sculpts in many different countries, most of his major works have been made in the United States, England, and Bolivia.
Picasso: Magic, Sex, & Death (2001) is a three-episode Channel 4 film documentary series on Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) presented by the artist's friend and biographer John Richardson, and directed by Christopher Bruce or British art critic Waldemar Januszczak, who was also the series director. On-screen contributors include Picasso descendants such as Paloma Picasso, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, Diana Widmaier-Picasso, Maya Picasso, and Claude Picasso; along with authorities such as Mary Ann Caws, Billy Klüver, Gérard Régnier, James Lord, Bernard Minoret, Robert Rosenblum, Linda Gasman, Marilyn McCully, David Gilmore and Gertje Utley; one former mistress ; and one flirtation.
Modern sculpture is generally considered to have begun with the work of Auguste Rodin, who is seen as the progenitor of modern sculpture. While Rodin did not set out to rebel against the past, he created a new way of building his works. He "dissolved the hard outline of contemporary Neo-Greek academicism, and thereby created a vital synthesis of opacity and transparency, volume and void". Along with a few other artists in the late 19th century who experimented with new artistic visions in sculpture like Edgar Degas and Paul Gauguin, Rodin invented a radical new approach in the creation of sculpture. Modern sculpture, along with all modern art, "arose as part of Western society's attempt to come to terms with the urban, industrial and secular society that emerged during the nineteenth century".
Carl Nesjar was a Norwegian painter, sculptor and graphic artist. He is best known for his collaborations with Pablo Picasso; serving for nearly twenty years as Picasso's chosen fabricator — the artist who turned Picasso's drawings and scale models into large public sculptures. One such work was Picasso's Regjeringskvartalet murals which are located in Oslo, the city where Nesjar lived for most of his life. He is also known for his series of "Ice Fountains” which can be found in cities around the world.
Diana Widmaier Picasso is a French art historian specialized in modern art, living in Paris.
Lydia Corbett is a French-English artist and former artist's model known for being "the girl with the ponytail" in Pablo Picasso's Sylvette series of paintings and a 1970 sculpture.
Femme au Chien is an oil-on-canvas painting by Pablo Picasso, which he painted in 1962. It is a portrait of Picasso's second wife, Jacqueline Roque, and their dog Kaboul, an Afghan Greyhound. The painting is an illustration of the great affection that Picasso displayed for both of the subjects in the portrait and has elements of the cubist style that he pioneered. It was produced in Picasso's later years when the couple was living at Notre-Dame-de-Vie, near Mougins, France. On 14 May 2019, it was sold at Sotheby's auction for almost $55 million and is now housed in the collection of Wynn Fine Art in Florida.