A walk through Picasso's 'Landscapes'
Plus: City Council considers longer terms — Nikki Haley runs for president — CMPD reveals faulty radar-gun certifications — CLT falls in passenger rankings — Nicaraguan priests released from prison
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A critic’s guide: The Mint’s ‘Picasso Landscapes’ exhibit brings together sides of the artist that are not often seen in one place
by Lawrence Toppman
Quick: Name any Picasso masterpiece that comes to mind.
“Guernica,” surely. “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” probably. Maybe “The Old Guitarist,” “The Weeping Woman” or “Three Musicians.” Perhaps his sketch of Don Quixote or portraits of Gertrude Stein, Dora Maar or his own somber self.
How many of these are landscapes? Zero. So when you learn the uptown Mint Museum has opened a show titled “Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds,” you might think, “Minor stuff. I could skip it.”
If so, you’d be wrong.
You likely won’t see anything familiar in this grouping of more than 40 works, the first traveling exhibit to explore his lesser-known affinity for landscapes. But you’ll see how he progressed from an astonishing teenager blending realism and impressionism to an older man who figuratively opened his head and let every thought, dream and vision fly out.
The exhibit smacks you on the nose as you step into it. “Landscape at Mougins II,” painted in 1965 eight years before he died there at 91, shows greenery run amok. Great verdant swaths obscure buildings and spread through the streets and rise up at the back like some kind of tsunami about to drown the town.
Yet step around the corner to the beginning of this mostly chronological exhibit, and you encounter the delicate “Mountains of Málaga” and subtle “Grove,” executed before he reached 20 with amazing skill for one so young. (People forget that Picasso, a great draftsman, could be faithful to life when he chose.)
You see the artist’s likeness throughout the exhibit in photos and silent films: wary, pugnacious, smiling on rare occasions like a wrestler figuring out how to take you down. He appears in only two paintings, both from later years when he embarrassingly asserted his aging virility. In “L’Aubade: The Serenade,” the naked Picasso plays an enormous clarinet shaped like a penis, while a nude model leans back, eyes closed, with a satisfied smile. Ummmm … no thanks.
One of the first-rate wall panels likens this to Titian’s “Sleeping Venus,” and you can see Picasso measuring himself against predecessors all through this show. He bellies up to Van Gogh with an evening in Provence, where the latter painted “Starry Night”; to Pissarro in a Parisian city scene with splashes of color; to Cezanne in views that conceive of nature in geometric ways.
He often does this with humor or even mockery. In Manet’s “The Old Musician,” five people surround a violinist sitting in melancholy silence and wonder what to make of him. In Picasso’s “Guitar Player and People in a Landscape,” the musician strums avidly for five hearers who barely care and resemble, among other things, a peacock, a goat and a spider monkey.
Cubism, which Picasso helped invent, naturally figures in some of the earlier works. The 1909 “Landscape with Bridge” reduces man-made structures to triangles, squares and half-circles, yet nature — represented by a round green leaf and a surging river — can’t be treated the same way: It’s wild, irreducible to simple shapes. Mountains in later paintings, triangular though they be, don’t seem abstract.
Picasso’s landscapes almost never have people or even animals in them. The title structure in the 1940 “Café en Royan” beckons invitingly, with gaudy striped awnings and brightly framed windows, in the center of town. Yet there’s not a soul around; the square remains as disturbingly empty as a cityscape by De Chirico.
Picasso rarely made direct references to current events, “Guernica” aside, but maybe he was showing his feelings for a France occupied by Nazis; Paris fell in the spring of 1940. I suppose he preferred nature to humanity in any case: “View of Cannes at Dusk” initially seems idyllic, with a tangle of foliage and two birds, but reveals a construction crane gnawing at the Cote d’Azur.
He was equally adept with riots of color, as in the popping red, blue, yellow and orange of the cheerful “Landscape of Juan-les-Pins,” and a limited palette. He used only tones of brown, gray and white to depict a Parisian park in “Snow Landscape.” Bare trees twist naturally in front of a misty, impressionistic background of flakes and mysterious foliage, an image that draws you in.
The exhibit concludes with a space full of collages and paintings by Charlotte-born Romare Bearden. I didn’t need an excuse to revisit such old friends as “Carolina Shout” and “The Train,” but the curators believe these men were linked by interests: bulls and bullfighting (definitely), use of windows to juxtapose exterior and interior action (yes, though that’s common), music (vaguely) and religion (maybe, but not clearly in this show).
Bearden’s early sacred paintings, especially “The Annunciation” and “Madonna and Child,” will knock you over. Visualize richly hued stained-glass windows rendering humans as cubist near-abstractions, and you’ll have the idea. Many artists working between 1900 and 1960 owed some kind of debt to Picasso, and Bearden pays it beautifully here.
If You’re Going
“Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds” runs through May 21 at the Mint Museum Uptown, 500 S. Tryon St. You must have a timed ticket to enter the exhibit for two hours, which will be plenty. Hours vary daily.
Tickets admit you to the rest of the museum beforehand or afterward. If you go by Feb. 19, you’ll see two Mark Rothko paintings that have nothing to do with Picasso but stand out among the American art found elsewhere on the same floor. Another exhibit to check out is “Fashion Reimagined: Themes and Variations 1760 - now” on the third floor, below the Picasso exhibit, on display through July 2.
Lawrence Toppman covered the arts for 40 years at The Charlotte Observer before retiring in 2020.
This week in Charlotte: Radar gun woes; YMCA Camp Thunderbird closes zipline; Myers Park High sexual assault case appealed; Charlotte FC acquires new player after Walkes’ death
On Saturdays, The Ledger sifts through the local news of the week and links to the top articles — even if they appeared somewhere else. We’ll help you get caught up. That’s what Saturdays are for.
Education
CMS board discusses bond, magnet changes: (Ledger 🔒) The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education spent its Valentine’s Day evening discussing a $3B bond referendum request it’s making to county commissioners and proposed changes to the district’s magnet program that includes growing the CMS Montessori program and adding new magnet programs to Garinger High School.
JCSU receives $5.7M grant: (WFAE) Johnson C. Smith University was awarded a $5.7M grant — the largest grant in the school’s history — by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration to upgrade the campus’ technology and deploy broadband 5G.
Politics
Longer city council terms? (WFAE) The Charlotte City Council voted Monday to move toward doubling their term length from two years to four years. The measure being considered would also add an eighth district seat to the council.
Nikki Haley running for president: (Politico) Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former ambassador to the United Nations, announced that she will run for president in 2024.
Bill would crack down on corporate landlords: (N.C. Tribune, subscriber-only) Democratic state Rep. Kelly Alexander of Mecklenburg introduced a bill in the General Assembly that would target “housing market manipulation” by outlawing people or companies from owning more than 100 single-family houses “used primarily for rental purposes” in counties with a population of more than 150,000.
Local news
City’s radar gun woes: (Ledger) The city of Charlotte said Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police used improperly certified radar guns since 2008, an issue that was discovered only two weeks ago. A prominent defense lawyer explained to The Ledger what that might mean (🔒). The district attorney’s office has started dismissing some speeding tickets because of the issue, The Observer reported.
Mayor’s house demolition plans contested: (QCity Metro, Axios Charlotte, Observer) Neighbors in the historic McCrorey Heights neighborhood where Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles plans to demolish and rebuild a home say they’re upset that Lyles isn’t holding to her previous plan to keep the home and move into it.
Myers Park High case appealed: (Ledger 🔒) The former Myers Park High student who lost her lawsuit last month against Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is appealing some of the judge’s rulings in the case. The former student had alleged CMS and CMPD had mishandled her alleged sexual assault in 2015.
Business
Deed restrictions wiped away: (Ledger 🔒) Some Charlotte residents are worried about a recent N.C. Supreme Court ruling that limits deed restrictions, which older neighborhoods had relied on to protect them from the construction of large houses and multifamily dwellings.
State treasurer calls out pay of health execs: (WUNC) State Treasurer Dale Folwell released his latest report critical of North Carolina hospital systems this week, in which he reported executive compensation at Atrium Health, Novant Health and other health care providers. The hospitals and their trade association said the report lacked context and that compensation is appropriate.
Good reads
Hurricanes vs. Panthers owners: (Assembly) In 2018, David Tepper acquired the Carolina Panthers, and Thomas Dundon bought the Carolina Hurricanes. Five years later, the Hurricanes are Stanley Cup contenders, but the Panthers haven’t played a post-season game since Tepper’s arrival. The team owners also differ in their leadership approach.
Charlotte’s ‘wedge’ and ‘crescent’ patterns fade: (Axios Charlotte) Charlotte’s communities of color and low-income people are historically concentrated in a “crescent” that wraps west, north and east around the city, and the wealthy and mostly white “wedge” is a sliver in southeast Charlotte; however, those patterns are shifting.
From the Ledger family of newsletters
Service dog impawsters: Emotional support animals and species other than dogs are not considered to be service animals by the Americans with Disabilities Act, so the growing number of people claiming their pets give them support and should be accommodated can be harmful to official service dogs and their owners.
XCLT trail update: The newest section of the Cross Charlotte Trail that connects the Brandywine Road and Tyvola Road portions is scheduled to be complete by late April, but the city said the timeline might have to be pushed back to June. When the section is complete, it will be possible to travel on an uninterrupted path between Pineville and NoDa.
2 Nicaraguan priests released from prison: Father Ramiro Tijerino and Father Óscar Danilo Benavidez Dávila arrived at the Charlotte airport this week after they were released from a notorious Nicaraguan prison.
Charlotte airport falls in passenger rankings: Charlotte’s airport looks as though it will rank no higher than 19th among airports worldwide and No. 10 in the U.S. based on 2022 passenger reports. In 2021, CLT ranked No. 6, as Covid kept passengers away from many international airports.
Wednesday (🔒)
Emails show back-to-school curveballs: Emails obtained by The Ledger as the result of a public records request show the drama that unfolded just prior to the opening of schools in August at Rea Farms STEAM Academy, after it was notified that new mobile classrooms it planned to open violated neighborhood covenants.
Matthews residents divided over new development: About 130 people packed the Matthews town hall on Monday to hear updates on Pappas Properties’ plans for a 570-unit mixed-use development off Idlewild Road and I-485 near Mint Hill called Sante Matthews.
Friday (🔒)
YMCA camp closes zipline: YMCA Camp Thunderbird said it has “decommissioned” the zipline that was the site of an incident last June in which a camper fell 40 feet off a platform and was critically injured.
Baby on the way: Charlotte City Council member Dimple Ajmera, 36, is expecting her second child and is scheduled to be induced at Atrium Health University City on Sunday.
Ways of Life (🔒)
Matthews resident Roger Burrill was an FBI agent for 27 years, and in his free time, he collected 15,000 to 20,000 baseball cards. He passed away from cancer on Nov. 30, 2022, at age 82.
Building a rideshare company from scratch: Charlotte entrepreneur Kimberly Evans founded Just Her Rideshare in 2020 to create a safe transportation alternative for women and to build a community among her drivers and customers.
With just a week before its opening game, Charlotte FC announced Thursday it had acquired 27-year-old Bill Tuiloma from the Portland Timbers in exchange for $800,000 general allocation money following the tragic death of Charlotte FC player Anton Walkes in January.
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