An Old Maestro's Magic

Right up to the moment that the billowing blue percale veil covering Pablo Picasso's 50-ft. sculpture came tumbling down last week in Chicago, the debate continued. Was it a bird, a woman, an Afghan hound, a Barbary ape, a cruel hoax, a Communist plot, or Superman? Alderman John J. Hoellen introduced a resolution in the city council to replace the work with a statue of Chicago Cubs First Baseman Ernie Banks. And Alderman Thomas Rosenberg countered with a proposal to send a statue of Alderman Hoellen to Paris' redlit Pigalle. Mused the Chicago Sun-Times: "Picasso himself must be the most surprised to find his art controversial today. It should make the old maestro feel young again."

Foil & Contrast. For the dedication, Chicago put on its festive best. The Chicago Symphony played Beethoven and Bernstein. Poet Gwendolyn Brooks read a poem to the effect, "Art hurts." In ringing tones, Mayor Richard Daley called the statue a "free expression" of the "vitality of the city." When at last the great blue veiling fell away (see opposite page), the crowd, estimated at upwards of 25,000, greeted it with an awed and respectful hush. Against the stark Miesian geometry of the Civic Center stood a majestic monument, its massive metal features--relieved by lacy rods--matching the building's rust-colored Cor-Ten steel girders. Picasso's work gracefully dominated the 78,000-sq.-ft. plaza as much by its delicate airiness as by its mass--both a contrast to the rectilinear building and a foil to the splashing fountains. Said Chicago Architect William Hartmann, who originally had persuaded the 85-year-old artist to design the sculpture (gratis) for Chicago: "Picasso's magic is again at work here."

Magical it was, but confusing still. Said Art Institute Director Charles Cunningham: "Those who haven't experienced this type of art may not like it. But that's all right. Not too many years from now, it will be accepted by the man on the street as Van Gogh and others are today." In fact, the man on the street was already accepting it. Chicago Policeman Benjamin Troupe declared: "I like it fine--whatever it is." Added Cabby George Downs: "The longer you look, the more you see. That's what art should be." Even the Chicago Tribune, which before the unveiling had called it "Picasso's predatory grasshopper," later reversed itself in a front-page evaluation: "Picasso has done it again. Plainly this work was not intended as a copy of anything but as an expressive form, a presence."

Old Dream. As for Picasso, he contented himself with sending a message from the French Riviera: "My warmest friendship to Chicago." In his absence, art scholars were busy tracing the statue's forebears back to a 1962 metal cutout titled Head of a Woman, currently on exhibition at London's Tate Gallery. But as far back as 1907, when Picasso was inspired by African masks, he painted a figure in the famed Demoiselles d'Avignon bearing an uncanny resemblance to the new sculpture. Chicago's Picasso is also a realization of an old dream. In 1929, commenting on some gigantic monuments he had conceived for the Mediterranean shore, Picasso said: "I have to paint them because no one is ready to commission one from me." At last, someone has.

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