Chicago's Picasso

Chicago - An Intimate Portrait:
A series of snapshots, little glimpses of the city that caught my eye during a recent evening visit to the city.

Pablo Picasso's untitled sculpture made of the same brown steel as the Daley Center, was placed on Daley Plaza in 1967.

Picasso refused a fee for his work (experts agreed that the market value of the work was far beyond the funds available) and presented the design and the model as a "gift to the people of Chicago." Picasso was 82 years old.

Even though Picasso never bothered to explain what the Chicago Picasso was meant to represent, others have not been exactly shy when coming up with theories of their own: Many people, among them several Picasso biographers, insist the figure is that of a woman with flowing hair. To a vocal minority, the sculpture is beyond any doubt nothing more than a cubist rendition of one of Picasso's pet dogs.

Greeted at first with much scorn and ridicule, the Chicago Picasso marked the beginning of Chicago's love affair with contemporary art, a love affair that would help turn downtown Chicago into a veritable open-air sculpture gallery, with some one hundred artworks spread all around the Loop for Chicagoans (and tourists) to enjoy.

[Or that's what google tells me. :-)]

If you know me, you probably think this might be a tilt shot. Well, it is! :-) I wanted to avoid some distractions in the background. Check out the interesting bottom part of the sculpture here.

View my entire 'Chicago' series in High Definition*.

View my entire 'Abstract' series in "High Definition*".