The Age of Picasso & Matisse: Modern Masters from the Art Institute of Chicago

     The Age of Picasso & Matisse: Modern Masters from the Art Institute of Chicago has opened to immense traffic and formidable popular acclaim at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth (Texas). The unique lending of works from the Art Institute of Chicago contains nearly 100 gems from groundbreaking European artists of the 20th century. (Pictured: Juan Gris' vision of Picasso [left] and Picasso's Old Guitarist.)

     The exhibition will coincide in November with the opening of the Kimbell’s Renzo Piano Pavilion. The collection with remain on view through Feb. 16, 2014.

     Whether or not one is familiar with the selections as mainstays of the Art Institute, the new setting casts everything in a striking new light. The very walls of the Kimbell lend an unaccustomed depth, and the ebb and flow of natural light assures a new view on every visit. Multiple visits might as well be necessary, the better to derive the deepest and most pleasurable impressions.

     The Art Institute will regather its masterworks upon the completion of gallery renovations in Chicago. The loan to the Kimbell is at once practical and generous.

The groundwork had been laid with the Kimbell’s 2008 exhibition of Impressionist masterworks from the Art Institute. The Age of Picasso & Matisse relates a vivid account of European art during the first half of the last century – a period of intense experimentation and fusion of varied concepts.

Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse are the pivotal figures – friends and rivals of immeasurable influence. Each is represented by 10 works. Picasso’s Old Guitarist (1901) opens the procession of unbridled creativity. His immense Nude under a Pine Tree (1959) marks the close of the circuit.

     The Art Institute’s signature Bathers by a River, one of Matisse’s most important large-scale paintings, is displayed alongside works from virtually every stage of his career. Bathers by a River represents Matisse’s most emphatic response to the revolutionary language of Cubism, as invented by Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, and Juan Gris around 1910.

On the Web: www.kimbellart.org