ablo Picasso’s gemmail “Seated Woman With Red Hat" is now on display after a ribbon cutting at the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science Wednesday, June 26, 2024. The piece was unveiled to the general public after hiding in storage for more than six decades.
MaCabe Brown / Courier & Press
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EVANSVILLE – Oliver Sponseller learned about Pablo Picasso in school.
The 6-year-old couldn’t remember what, exactly – the lesson was a “long time ago” – but he did recall taking ripped pieces of construction paper and putting them together in a collage to mimic the famous artist’s style.
So Wednesday morning, when he saw a Picasso piece in person, he jumped up and offered a one-word review: “neat!”
Oliver and his grandpa Keith Kinney, a museum board member, were among the collection of people who streamed into the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science’s newly renovated gallery to finally lay eyes on “Seated Woman in Red Hat,” the glass mosaic that was unveiled to the general public after hiding in storage for more than six decades.
The piece had been available to museum members since Sunday, but Wednesday marked the first day anyone could take a look.
According to museum executive director Mary Bower, about 300 people have viewed the Picasso in that limited window. And about 40 others attended the ribbon-cutting by Evansville Mayor Stephanie Terry Wednesday morning.
Bower believes “Seated Woman” will raise the museum’s profile and bring scores of new guests – both locally and from around the world. Created through a process called gemmail – in which shards of painted glass are bonded together with heated enamel – the mosaic is one of only two artworks of its kind publicly on display in the U.S.
“Today is a historic day for our museum,” she said.
What the display looks like, and how 'Seated Woman' was created
The piece peers from a back wall in the revamped gallery under a recreation of the famed artist’s signature, which also shines in the artwork’s upper-right corner.
Nearby displays tell the story of Picasso, industrial designer Raymond Loewy, who donated the piece back in 1963, and the “Seated Woman” herself: Marie-Therese Walter, who started as Picasso’s 17-year-old muse before becoming his mistress and eventually the mother of his daughter, Maya.
The exhibit also includes four Picasso prints housed in the museum’s permanent collection, as well as more than 20 others on loan from a New York museum until July 21.
It’s encased in its original frame and backlit by strings of LED bulbs, which allows the colors to glimmer and shine. The most interesting views come up close, where you can see how the thick shards bulge and piece together.
Although it bears Picasso’s name, he didn't create it all himself. He was one of several famous artists who worked at Jean Crotti and Roger Malherbe-Navarre’s Paris studio in the 1950s, allowing glass artisans to recreate previous paintings in the new gemmail technique. The painting version of "Seated Woman" actually hangs in the St. Louis Art Museum.
Bower likened Picasso’s role in the mosaic to that of a supervisor.
“I don’t know how hands-on each individual artist was, but they didn’t just commission it,” she said. “They were there making artistic decisions – just like sculptors at a foundry.”
A 1961 Cincinnati Enquirer article on a traveling gemmail exhibit said “expert craftsmen” would take painted glass slabs of varying thickness and fit them together while others would stand on stepladders above them, telling their partners where the pieces should go to best filter the light.
Picasso ended up making about 50 of them, selling most of them to private collectors, Bower said. That included Loewy – the man behind the Lucky Strike log and Greyhound bus design, among several other pieces of 20th century iconography.
Cynthia Pate was among the crowd on Wednesday. She taught art at McGary Middle School and Harrison High School for more than 30 years, but said she had never laid eyes on something like “Seated Woman.”
“I’ve done some stained glass myself, but never have I seen that technique,” she said. “It’s luminous in a way that a two-dimensional painting doesn’t quite achieve.
“I was just thinking – I certainly would have brought field trips here in my day.”
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