The North Carolina Museum of Art’s first Pablo Picasso painting—”Seated Woman, Red and Yellow Background”—is now on display in the museum’s West Building.
The 1952 portrait of Picasso’s muse and lover, French artist Françoise Gilot, employs the cubist techniques Picasso was known for. Alongside four other paintings donated to the museum that now hang in the museum’s 20th Century Art gallery, the Picasso piece is a “transformational” donation, the press release states, that will “significantly grow and strengthen the NCMA’s modern art holdings.”
The 19th- and 20th-century paintings—by Picasso, Maurice de Vlaminck, Alfred Sisley, Emil Nolde, and Kees van Dongen—were originally promised to the museum in 2010 by Julian and Josie Robertson of New York City.
Julian, who grew up in Salisbury and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, developed a love of art through his wife Josie, who was an art major, the press release states. As a bequest, the paintings were given to the museum upon the Robertsons’ deaths.
“We are grateful to the Robertson family for giving their treasured artworks to the NCMA to share with North Carolinians and all our visitors for generations to come,” Museum Director Valerie Hillings said in the press release.
“It is fitting that Picasso’s ‘Seated Woman, Red and Yellow Background,’ much beloved by the Robertsons, enters the collection as cultural institutions worldwide are commemorating the 50th anniversary year of the artist’s death.”
The Picasso painting isn’t the only significant addition, though. Maurice de Vlaminck’s “The Bridge at Poissy,” and Kess van Dongen’s “Reclining Nude” “serve as noteworthy examples of fauvism—the first avant-garde movement that was a harbinger of abstraction,” the news release stated.
Meanwhile, Emil Nolde’s “Fishing Boat (Red Sky)” adds to the museum’s collection of German expressionism, and Alfred Sisley’s “The Bridge at Moret on an April Morning” is a lovely addition to the impressionist collection, which also includes works by Monet.
The museum will be closed on Sunday, December 24, and Wednesday, December 27.
Follow Staff Writer Jasmine Gallup on Twitter or send an email to jgallup@indyweek.com. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.
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