Tag: Pablo Picasso

From the Collection: Pablo Picasso’s The Cock of the Liberation

Post author By Milwaukee Art Museum
Post date September 8, 2015
No Comments on From the Collection: Pablo Picasso’s The Cock of the Liberation

Colorful rooster made of different shapes — Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973), *The Cock of the Liberation (Le Coq de la Liberation)*, 1944 (detail). Oil on canvas. 39 1/2 × 31 3/4 in. (100.33 × 80.65 cm). Gift of Mrs. Harry Lynde Bradley M1959.372. Photo credit: Larry Sanders. © 2019 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Many of the artists featured in the special exhibition Van Gogh to Pollock: Modern Rebels, Masterworks from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery are also represented in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum. This is the fifth in a series of blog posts that will highlight Milwaukee’s artworks during the run of the exhibition.

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973) is not usually considered a political artist. His favorite artistic subjects were still-lifes, portraits, harlequins, and other seemingly uncontroversial images.

But in some key instances, world events were an important influence on him. We don’t have to look far to find an example: the Milwaukee Art Museum’s The Cock of the Liberation (Le Coq de la Liberation), painted by Picasso in 1944.

Tags Collection, From the Collection, Modern art, Modern Rebels, Pablo Picasso

Art Curatorial

Matisse versus Picasso

Matisse’s colorful “La Musique” is featured in the exhibition Van Gogh to Pollock: Modern Rebels. Come check it out! Photo by the author.

“If I were not making the paintings I make, I would paint like Matisse,” Pablo Picasso once said of his rival and dear friend, Henri Matisse. Both artists are featured in the Milwaukee Art Museum’s latest exhibition, Van Gogh to Pollock: Modern Rebels.

In the early twentieth century, the relationship between Picasso and Matisse had developed out of a nature of competitiveness and grew to be one of mutual admiration—at times. When Picasso came onto the European modern art scene, Matisse, being eleven years older, had already established himself as a rebel in that world. After meeting in 1906 at the Parisian salon of famous writer Gertrude Stein, the two artists would continuously look to one another’s work to both pose criticism and find inspiration.

Tags 20th century art, European art, Henri Matisse, Modern art, Modern Rebels, Pablo Picasso

Art Library/Archives

Vive “Verve”

Matisse’s cover, VERVE The French Review of Art Volume 2, Number 8 (Sept-Nov 1940). Printed in France. Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Lillian Schultz. Photo by Beret Balestrieri Kohn.

Imagine having your favorite artists, authors, philosophers and others ready at your beck and call for any project you desire.

What would you have them do?

Published by E. Tériade, “Verve: The French Review of Art” was a legendary quarterly art journal with that kind of seemingly-limitless access to legendary artists.

From 1937 to 1975, Tériade (real name Stratis Eleftheriades, French 1889–1983) was an art critic, patron, and publisher that commissioned artists and philosophers, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and André Derain to produce works for his prestigious journal.

This particular issue of “Verve” (Vol. 2, No. 8, Sept—Nov 1940), devoted to the “Nature of France”, features a luxurious dark dust jacket after Matisse’s paper cutouts.

Tags European art, French Art, Henry Matisse, Library/Archives, Modern art, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Bonnard, Verve