By Collin Kelley
Editor
The High Museum has another blockbuster exhibition on its walls with “Picasso to Warhol: Fourteen Modern Masters,” which runs Oct. 15 to April 29. I went on the media preview tour this morning and was blown away by the selection of work from the Museum of Modern Art.
While I loved the Cartier-Bresson exhibit, it was overwhelming. The 120-plus works for “Picasso to Warhol” are expertly edited and curated. The connections between iconic artists flow seamlessly between the galleries giving visitors a real master class in 20th century modern art. The 14 artists represented include Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Constantin Brancusi, Fernand Leger, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, Joan Miro, Alexander Calder, Romare Bearden, Louise Bourgeois, Jackson Pollack, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol.
The moment you step off the elevator you are met with Picasso’s “Girl before a Mirror” from 1932 and you can’t help but marvel that such a famous work is here in Atlanta. And those “oohs and ahhs” continue right until the very end with a room dedicated specifically to Warhol’s pop art – the “Campbell’s Soup Cans” take up an entire wall and there’s a video projection of short films featuring Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Salvador Dali and other artists who dropped by The Factory.
In between, you’re treated to such work as Alexander Calder’s “Snow Flurry” mobile, Matisse’s famous large-scale “Dance,” Pollack at his drip painting best with “Number 1A” and Jasper Johns’ moving meditation, “Summer.”
Don’t forget to bring your iPhone or Android phone to try out the free app High Art Clix. You can take a photo of any of the pieces and image recognition software will give you more information, let you leave messages for other art fans, talk to the curators and more.
For more about the exhibition, visit www.high.org.