Q&A with Chelsie Walker on new Picasso exhibit at Evansville Museum
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A highly-anticipated Pablo Picasso exhibit is now on display at the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science. It features the piece called “Seated Woman in Red Hat,” which was donated to the museum in 1963, identified as the work of Picasso in 2012 and unveiled to members on June 23 and the public on June 26.
Chelsie Walker, Evansville Museum’s marketing director, spoke with Inside INdiana Business about the journey of Seated Woman in Red Hat from storage to the spotlight.
What type of art is Seated Woman in Red Hat?
This is a glass mosaic piece by Picasso. He worked with a studio in France for about two years, making about 50 pieces during that stint. Essentially, it’s slivers of colored glass layered on top of each other to create the overall image. In these 50 works, he duplicated some of his favorite paintings that he had created.
For example, the piece that our glass work is inspired by just so happens to be on loan to the collection at the St. Louis Museum of Art. It’s pretty ironic they ended up in the same part of the U.S.
This piece was donated to the museum in 1963, but it wasn’t identified as a Picasso until 2012. Tell me about that.
At the time that this was donated, it wasn’t necessarily known that Picasso did any work with glass. So the museum assumed it was more like a work inspired by Picasso and not something he directly had a hand in creating.
It went into storage, where it was taken care of and kept safely until an auction house reached out to the director and the art curator at the time asking if we had this piece. They had another one of these glass pieces that had been brought to them that somebody wanted to auction off. They were doing their due diligence and putting in the research to authenticate this piece. With that, they confirmed ours was done by Picasso at this studio, something we never knew.
Why did it take 12 years to display Seated Woman in Red Hat?
That gets into funding, which is a big issue. Obviously, we had to go through the process of getting it appraised, figuring out what its value was and then what steps we needed to take to up security and put it on proper display in a safe way. With it being glass, it’s extremely fragile, so it can’t just be hanging on a wall. That took quite a bit of time to get everything together and then, of course, to raise the funds.
The museum at the time was already working on putting the plans together to build our Koch Immersive Theater and Planetarium. We already had a capital campaign project going on at the time, so it just wasn’t the best time for the museum to display it at that point. Insurance was not going to let us display it until all of these other steps had been taken. It took 12 years for everything to line up and the money to come for us to put it out there so everybody can see it.
We started the process of renovating the galleries in 2021. We started front to back on the galleries the Picasso is now displayed in, saving that section for nearly last because you don’t want a ton of construction going on around a piece like that. The gallery renovation started, the security update started and then everything culminated a few weeks ago with finally finishing that section of renovations.
What’s the value of this piece?
I’m not 100% sure. I know originally numbers were thrown around between $25 and $40 million, but that’s something that Mary [McNamee Bower, outgoing executive director] and the board know, and that’s about it.
What else is in the Picasso exhibit?
In the gallery the Picasso is in, we have two prints. One is a charcoal or pastel drawing done by Picasso as well as a piece of pottery done by Picasso that are part of the museum’s permanent collections. Surrounding that space is a gallery that essentially tells the story of start to finish, how the museum came to be, and all the way up to where it is now with installing the Picasso.
The artwork that accompanies that exhibition is artwork from donors who have donated large portions of their collections to us, and that makes up a large percentage of what we have in our permanent collections. It highlights those people who made the museum possible by donating these fantastic works that they had in their collections and tells the journey between where we started versus where we are now.
The Picasso, of course, is permanent. It’s built into the wall. It’s not going anywhere anytime in the near future. But the other pieces in the gallery around it might change, might rotate out but they are on display for a good while.
How has the exhibit been received since it opened?
Really great! We’ve had a lot of people posting about it on social media and a lot of people coming in specifically to see it. For our opening reception weekend, we had over 400 people come through the museum. It was fantastic. I’m so glad that everybody is enjoying it and taking it in, and I’m glad of all the great reception.
How do you think this Picasso exhibit will benefit the museum?
I’m hoping it’s going to help us grow and reach a larger outside audience. St. Louis and Indianapolis, their art museums are bigger than ours, but this is a draw even they don’t have. We’re hoping to capitalize on that … and bring even better things to Evansville.
Tell me about the museum’s art gallery expansion.
We are working on one final phase of the art gallery renovations, which will expand our art gallery spaces by 34% and will also give us a panoramic view of the Ohio River.
We are planning to bust out some walls and expand that space to form a permanent sculpture gallery to finally be able to feature some of the pieces from the museum’s permanent sculpture collection that we have not previously been able to do because of weight requirements or space issues, things like that.
What else is going on at the museum this summer?
We have our Geek Con—which is like a Comic-Con featuring all sorts of local comic book artists, people in the film industry, cosplayers, all of that stuff—happening on August 27. That’s usually a big event for us. We’ve got exhibitions coming and going throughout the year. There’s always something changing. We have a couple of new shows coming up in our Koch Immersive Theater and Planetarium.
We have a new executive director, and we are excited to have her start on July 22 and usher in a new era at the museum between the Picasso and a new executive director. So very excited to see where things go from here.