Picasso and American Art

“Young painters should take up our researches in order to react clearly against us—the whole world is open before us, everything waiting to be done, not just redone.” —Pablo Picasso, 1935

Picasso’s influence on American artistic production is one of the fundamental stories of art in the 20th century. He stimulated generations of practitioners to create innovative new work, under the sometimes anxious influence of an artist they perceived as a “master.” These contributions also include the development of institutions that supported new thinking about contemporary art. Michael FitzGerald, curator of Picasso and American Art and professor of art history at Trinity College, speaks about his extensive research on this topic and the process of selecting works for the show.