With Thanksgiving just around the corner, we’re seeing cornucopias everywhere. No cornucopia is complete without a healthy selection of grapes, pears, apples, and other ripe fruits. Here’s a few works from our permanent collection featuring this critical component.
Author Archives: Experiment Station
Collection Comparisons: Picasso’s Harlequins
In the Collection Comparisons series, we pair one work from Gauguin to Picasso: Masterworks from Switzerland with a similar work from the Phillips’s own permanent collection.
Painted in Pablo Picasso’s Montrouge, France studio, Harlequin with Black Mask at left above, shows the artist’s embrace of classicism and the motif of the harlequin, which first appeared in his Sketchbook No. 59 in 1916. Also in 1916, French writer Jean Cocteau dressed as a harlequin to invite Picasso to participate in Parade, his project for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Although a harlequin never appeared in Parade, Picasso painted one at the center of the huge curtain designed for the ballet, which may have inspired this painting.
Karl Im Obersteg and Duncan Phillips were also fascinated by this theme in Picasso’s work. In October 1923, Im Obersteg acquired Picasso’s Seated Harlequin (no longer in the collection) from Paul Rosenberg in Paris. Some 15 years later, Phillips purchased the sculpture The Jester (not currently on view at the Phillips) from Buchholz Gallery for $685.
ArtGrams: One Billion Breaths in a Lifetime
In this month’s edition of ArtGrams, we’re highlighting your creative shots of Jill O’Bryan’s one billion breaths in a lifetime. Hear from the artist in this video taken during installation.