Click here to skip to main content
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Tickets Shop Join Give
My MFA Members Corporate Press
Exhibitions
On View
Upcoming
Past
MFA On Tour
Become a member of the MFA!
give to the mfa
Subscribe to MFA Mail and receive special offers and updates via e-mail!
Degas to Picasso: Modern Masters
Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - Sunday, July 23, 2006
Printable View printable view
LEFT: Edgar Degas, Dancers in Rose, about 1900. Pastel on paper. Seth K. Sweetser Fund. RIGHT: Pablo Picasso, Femme à la Fenêtre (Woman at the Window), 1952.© 2005 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
LEFT: Toward the end of his working life, Degas experimented with intense
color and almost expressionistic use of pastel, as in this superb example,
Dancers in Rose. Around 1900, Degas was known as one of the great “old
masters” of the modern movement; his subjects and style were to inspire a
younger generation. RIGHT: Picasso is one of the most significant painter/
printmakers of the Western tradition. His imposing, boldly patterned
Woman
at the Window (1952) is one of the most expressive of the several hundred
inventive etchings that span his long artistic career.
“Degas to Picasso: Modern Masters” is an ambitious, kaleidoscopic survey of European art from 1900 to the 1960s. This unprecedented panorama of modernism from the MFA’s collection occupies the Torf and Trustman Galleries as well as the Museum’s Lower Rotunda, presenting a rare opportunity to see more than 280 works in diverse media, some newly acquired and others rarely on view due to space limitations or sensitivity to light.

From the late works of Degas, Gauguin, Munch, and Rodin through the last creative outbursts of Giacometti and Picasso, the exhibition explores major figures in twentieth-century Europe, from late impressionism and symbolism to mid-century modernism.

The School of Paris is represented by Matisse and intriguing artists such as Berman, Despiau, and Zadkine. International Surrealist works include paintings and works on paper by Spaniards Dali and Miró, Belgians Delvaux and Magritte, and the Chilean-born painter Matta. American expatriates active in France, Calder and Man Ray, are an integral part of this complex modernist mosaic.

Postwar masterpieces include works by de Stael and the COBRA group. A British section highlights both more conservative tendencies (Sickert) as well as the avant-garde (Gaudier-Brzeska). Pieces by Schiele, Kokoschka, Kirchner, Nolde, Klee, Beckmann, and Kollwitz exemplify the range of art that came out of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Works by Picasso in many media and in a startling variety of styles span the breadth of the exhibition.
Click here to purchase exhibition related items in the MFA Online Shop.
Millennium Bostonian Hotel is the exclusive hotel sponsor.
Exclusive Hotel Sponsor is the Millennium Bostonian Hotel
The media sponsor is Classical 102.5 WCRB.
Media Sponsor is Classical 102.5 WCRB
accessibility accessibility | contact | sitemap | privacy policy | © 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston RSS RSS Feed