The Smithsonian Snapshot
With over 137 million items in its collection, it should come as no surprise that some of the Smithsonian’s treasures have incredible stories behind them. In order to share some of these stories, they’ve launched “Smithsonian Snapshot, ” a weekly peek into the collection, one item at a time. The Smithsonian’s collection is so huge that most of it remains in storage during the year, so Snapshot is a way to give some of the items that seldom or never make it into an exhibition their own moment in the sun.
This week’s item is Pablo Picasso’s list of European artists he recommended for the 1913 Armory Show, the very first exhibition of modern art in the United States. Evidently unclear on how to spell many of the names, he phonetically spells Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger and Juan Gris, among others. (The list inspired a recently published book by the Smithsonian on to-do lists, notes and scribblings by famous artists.) Though the Armory Show has become an annual institution, it was extremely controversial in its first year. Following Picasso’s recommendation, Duchamp was included and his “Nude Descending a Staircase” raised quite a stir, prompting mockery and derision from critics and viewers alike. As for the show as a whole, President Roosevelt made his distaste for the modern works clear when he declared “That’s not art!” The show, however, goes on.
Previous snapshots include a dress Rosa Parks was making at the time of her arrest, two jars of preserved Woolly Mammoth flesh and the first class envelope Harry Winston used to mail the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian.
