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Nancy Tang
Art Humanities: Masterpieces of Western Art
Exhibition Review: Picasso Sculpture
September 30, 2015

Picasso in Three Dimensions

One should expect a visit to the Museum of Modern Art on a weekend to be crowded, but
Picasso Sculpture had an almost surprising amount of people blocking every entryway, intently
reading the placards on the wall at the beginning of each new gallery space. Over 100 works are
arranged chronologically, covering each episode of sculpture making Picasso went through
(MoMA). Beginning with some of Picassos drawings which reference sculpture on the wall
opposite the escalators, viewers are ushered through the eleven galleries in a very logical manner.
The first room has almost a dozen of Picassos earliest works in sculpting and interpreting the
human form, which are seen as the first Cubist sculptures. Compared to the works seen later on
in the exhibition, these worksproduced between 1902 and 1909are relatively tame and
conventional (MoMA). In retrospect, it was like going to a beach on a slightly too cold day and
just dipping your toes into the water for a bit.
We are constantly reminded that Picasso had no formal training as a sculptor. As opposed
to painting, which he earned his living through, sculpture was a more personal and perhaps even
more experimental realm. The second gallery chronicles Picassos work from 1912 to 1915. By
this point, his work is firmly entrenched in the idea of representing Cubism in a threedimensional space and exploring the use of more unconventional materials. Six versions of
Glass of Absinthe were cast in bronze from one wax mold and decorated with paint. Speaking on

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this project, Picasso stated, "I was interested in the relation between the real spoon and the
modeled glass. In the way they clashed with each other" (MoMA). The idea of clashing materials
continues well into Picassos career as a sculptor, and can be seen as one of the most prominent
features of his work up until the 1950s. Other pieces include the two guitars, one which is made
of paper, cardboard, and twine, and the metal version. These flatter, wall mounted pieces are
essentially an expansion upon collage, an art form favored by Picassos friend, and less-famous
Cubist contemporary, Georges Braque. There are few pieces displayed on the wall throughout the
exhibition, making these particularly memorable and important.
Picasso stopped sculpting for over ten years, which included World War 1. He began
again in 1927, when he was asked to create a monument for the French poet Guillaume
Apollinaire. The sketches and models behind this attempt, which look like black lines on paper,
were drastically different from Picassos previous work and utilize a revolutionary technique
using welding and iron rods, developed by Picassos friend Julio Gonzlez. This gallery also
features Metamorphosis I and Metamorphosis II, a theme Picasso also explored in drawings and
paintings. In this sense, they can be interpreted to stand for Picassos own growth and change as
a sculptor over this period of time.
The next rooms show Picassos work after he bought a property in Boisgeloup, and
converted it into a sculpture studio (MoMA). From this point onwards, through another war and
until the last large room of sheet metal sculptures, much of Picassos work seems more solid, but
also more absurd. A womans head is turned into a phallus, a baboons face is made of a car. I
personally found this to be kind of gimmicky at some points, but it was still worth seeing.
The last gallery, showing sheet metal sculptures made from 1954 to 1964 is a logical
ending, both in the sense that these pieces were created toward the end of Picassos life and that

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they are more unified works, like those seen at the beginning of the exhibition. Nonetheless,
none of the pieces here are uniform or boring, and they create a wholly satisfying closing.
Because of the curators choice to arrange pieces in groups based on time, we see much
of Picassos work does not have a traceable pattern. He is constantly jumping around, with
different media and different subject matter, sometimes settling on one thing, but just as quickly
and erratically moving on. The chronological organization of this exhibition is essential to that
understanding. Additionally, none of the individual galleries seemed too crowded. The perfect
amount of space is left to weave between people and pieces, while still being able to survey the
room completely. Despite this, the exhibition was still quite overwhelming and dizzyingly
complete. I had the distinct feeling that no matter how much time I spent wandering around the
exhibition, I would never really have a comprehensive understanding of everything there.
Despite this, or perhaps because of this, I would encourage anyone with the slightest interest in
sculpture, Picasso, or art in general to visit this exhibition. It breaches the conception most
people have of Picasso as a painter, as well as the ideas of sculpture embedded into our minds as
a society, which would generally show more classical works. Although Picasso is by no means
my favorite as a sculptor, exploring this exhibition gave me a more concrete idea of him as an
artist and person as a whole, and of my own tastes.

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Works Cited
MoMA. Pablo Picasso. Glass of Absinthe. Paris, Spring 1914. MoMA, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.
MoMA. Pablo Picasso. Project for a Monument to Guillaume Apollinaire. 1962; Enlarged
Version after 1928 Original Maquette. MoMA, n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
MoMA. Pablo Picasso. Glass of Absinthe. Paris, Spring 1914. MoMA, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.