This week I saw Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds at the only East Coast stop of its tour.
Walking through the galleries filled with forty works from throughout his career, I couldn’t help but compare it to the larger exhibit I saw in 1998: Picasso: Master Works From the Museum of Modern Art. I appreciate the tight focus of Out of Bounds, and how it broadened my thinking of Picasso’s work.
"When I was a child, my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier you'll be a general. If you become a monk you'll end up as the Pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso."
Pablo Picasso
Three Steps from Pablo Picasso
I have a Bacon’s Law relationship with Picasso through his first and most important patron, Gertrude Stein, through her cousin Dr. Mary Ellen Hecht (1929-2022). I guess that brings me three steps from Picasso, not six!
I had the privilege of editing the book Dr. H wrote with Whoopi Goldberg, Two Old Broads: What You Need to Know that You Didn’t Know You Needed to Know.
Dr. H and I usually met twice a week via Zoom and she would open our sessions with a little ditty from her Baltimore childhood, “Good morning to you.” At age 92, she learned not only how to meet by Zoom, but also how to collaborate on "Two Old Broads" using Google Docs. What a woman. Indomitable.
Cousins Gertrude and Mary Ellen
Dr. H met her famous cousin in 1934. Gertrude, aged 60, was recuperating after her coast-to-coast lecture tour at the Baltimore home of Dr. H’s grandmother, Rose Ellen Stein, and her husband, Julian Sr.
Dr. H was four years old when she entered the living room. After making her curtsey, she burst into tears. Not exactly a propitious start! But Gertrude soothed her with a voice and gentle look that “one generally used when confronted by a large strange dog.” Then they took tea together.
As a teenager in 1946, Dr. H visited cousin Gertrude in Paris, where she met Picasso. He invited her to visit his studio, which she did, but her relatives protected her from the infamous proclivities of The Spaniard.
After two careers, one in NYC theater, and the other as an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. H also lived in Paris, returning to the states after more than a decade abroad. Fun fact: Dr. H went from theater into medicine, while cousin Gertrude went from medicine to the arts.
If you’re interested in seeing the only East Coast stop on the Out of Bounds Tour, I live three miles from the Mint Museum Uptown. Let me know you’re coming, and I’ll buy you a cuppa in the restaurant.
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