picasso in the metropolitan museum of art

NEW YORK, NY.- Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a landmark exhibition of 300 works by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973), will provide an unprecedented opportunity to see one of the most important collections in the world of the artist's work. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 27 through August 1, 2010, this is the first exhibition to focus exclusively on the remarkable array of works by Picasso in the Met's collection. The exhibition will reveal the Museum's complete holdings of the artist's paintings, drawings, sculptures, and ceramics—never before seen in their entirety—as well as a significant number of his prints. The exhibition encompasses the key subjects for which Picasso is so well known: the pensive harlequins of his Blue and Rose periods, the faceted figures and tabletop still lifes of his Cubist years, the monumental heads and classicizing bathers of the 1920s, the raging bulls and dreaming nudes of the 1930s, and the rakish musketeers of his final years. Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art will feature 34 paintings, 58 drawings, a dozen sculptures and ceramics, and an extensive selection of prints (some 200 from a total of 400), all acquired by the Museum over the past 60 years. Importantly, the exhibition includes many works on paper by Picasso that have rarely, if ever, been exhibited before at the Metropolitan. The Metropolitan's collection reflects the full breadth of Picasso's multi-sided genius as it asserted itself over the course of his long and influential career. The works range in date from a dashing self-portrait of 1900 (Self-Portrait "Yo") by the 18-year-old Spaniard to the fanciful Standing Nude and Seated Musketeer (1968), created when the artist was 87.