Although Joan Miró is the current headliner at The McNay Art Museum, many will tell us that the Miro we know in the exhibition Miro: The Experience of Seeing might not have existed if not for his long friendship with Pablo Picasso. Miró regarded Picasso, 12 years his senior, as his mentor.
Despite the Miró exhibition's focus only on the final two decades of Miró's work, the current four-part radio series, Modernists at The McNay, produced and hosted by yours truly, takes into consideration the longer timeline, beginning in the early 20th Century with the emergence of the Cubist movement of visual art. This gives context to Miró. It also gives the opportunity to consider the importance of Cubism to all the visual arts movements which followed. According to Lyle Williams, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the McNay, "every artist in the 20th century, Miró included, would not have existed, would not have done the art that they did, if Cubism had never happened."
Modernists at The McNay, Part Two, will consider Miro's various methods of sparking the initial germ of creation, from a crumpled piece of paper to a spatter of paint. But we will also focus upon several aspects of Picasso, ranging from the radical ballet, Parade, a collaboration of Picasso, Erik Satie, Jean Cocteau, and choreographer Leonid Massine, to Picasso's set designs for Manuel de Falla's Sombrero de Tres Picos (The Three-Cornered Hat).
Here are a several videos which frame certain aspects of the legacy of Pablo Picasso. I hope you find them enjoyable.
Guy Clark: Picasso's Mandolin
Parade and the Joffrey Ballet
Parade for Big Band with Gary Carpenter
