Travis Simpkins

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Research: Worcester Art Museum "Then and Now" by Travis Simpkins. Update #15

These "Then and Now" compositions focus on the recently unveiled, "très attendu", Knights! Exhibition at the Worcester Art Museum.

-The first photo, from 1910, shows the 2nd floor main hall during an early period of transition in the museum's history. At that time, the collection still consisted largely of plaster casts and works on loan, but the process of acquiring original works of Art for the permanent collection had begun to gain momentum… with works by Thomas Crawford, Gilbert Stuart and Joseph Badger intermingled with copies of Classical sculpture. The same spot today, Salisbury Hall, once again reflects a new stage and shift in the museum's development. As the starting point of "Knights!", a transformative acquisition of arms and armor, bold change is evident with a mounted knight on a strawberry pink horse and dual video projections glowing in the openings of the original 1897 windows.
-The photo at left in the second "Then and Now" composition, from 1984, shows the inaugural exhibit in the freshly-built Hiatt Wing: The Collector's Cabinet. (This view was partway through the gallery, with another room just before it at the entrance. I'll post the entrance comparison shots at a later date). The current view from the same spot in Knights!, finds Batman presiding over his "Knights" in the center of the gallery.

-The sketch depicts the two ancient bronze "Corinthian Helmets" (550-450 B.C.) in the Roundtable section of Knights!

-The last photo sequence is the culmination of nearly four months (15 weeks) of repeat visits to the gallery during the exhibit's construction. I started when the gallery was empty, not knowing what the final floor plan would be, and chose about a dozen specific reference points to which I'd keep returning every 7 days. After a few weeks (as the walls went up), it became apparent which views would work, and were worth continuing. From the installation of hardwood floors, to the painting of the walls and horse, it was a remarkable process to observe considering the short time frame. In the end, I created 5 separate 15-week sequential compositions from different points in the gallery. I'll share the other four views in future updates.

Salisbury Hall. Worcester Art Museum. by Travis Simpkins

Knights! . Worcester Art Museum. by Travis Simpkins

Corinthian Helmets. Worcester Art Museum. by Travis Simpkins

Knights! Construction. Worcester Art Museum. by Travis Simpkins

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

“Le pigeon aux petits pois” by Pablo Picasso: Stolen on May 20, 2010

Picasso: Le pigeon aux petits loi. Stolen, 2010. by Travis Simpkins

“Le pigeon aux petits pois” by Pablo Picasso: Stolen on May 20, 2010

by Travis Simpkins

The Painting:

Painted in rich tones of ochre and brown, Le pigeon aux petits pois or The Pigeon with Green Peas exudes a palpable warmth. The 26x21 oil on canvas was conceived in 1911, while Picasso was in the creative throes of his Cubist period. Bold strokes and sharp lines deconstruct the subject, presumably of a pigeon making plans to swipe some peas outside of a Parisian café. In cubism, subjects are visually analyzed, taken apart and reassembled in abstract form. The theoretical essence of Cubism is that instead of being relegated to a single focused viewpoint, a subject can be seen from all sides simultaneously, placing it in a greater context. Picasso utilized this innovative style from about 1908-1912.

The Theft:

On May 20, 2010, a lone thief pulled off one of the biggest art thefts in history. Five works, valued at upwards of €100m, were stolen from the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris. The filched paintings were well-known works by top-tier artists: Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, Leger and Braque.

Lax security and careless blunders were largely to blame for the success of the heist. It was discovered that the paintings were gone around 7:00 a.m. The three guards on duty that night were dumbfounded, telling investigators that they “saw nothing.” A closer look at the museum's security system and the events of that shift painted an unsettling picture. Inspection of the security alarms revealed that the motion detectors that covered the area in which the theft took place had been non-functional for nearly two months, since March 30. The alarms points were malfunctioning, causing false alarms, and the management decided to disable them to alleviate their frustration. Spare parts to make repairs had been ordered, but had not arrived yet.

On the night of May 20, all of the exterior CCTV cameras were focused towards the roof of the building, leaving the guards blind to street level activity. At about 4:00 a.m., the thief sheared a padlock and smashed through a first floor window to gain entry to the Musée d'Art Moderne. Once inside, the masked “burly” thief passed by an array of interior CCTV cameras, which nicely recorded his nonchalant movements as he perpetrated the crime. The thief spent about 15 minutes removing the five canvases from their frames, and he placed them all together in a large single bundle before exiting from the same window. French investigators theorize that the guards were sleeping, or otherwise distracted, in order to have missed the entire crime playing out on their monitors. The Brigade de Répression du Banditisme believes that the thief acted alone.

In 2011, a suspect told police that he had thrown the five paintings in the garbage and that they were destroyed by a trash compactor. However, this claim is unsubstantiated.

The five masterpieces are unsellable and have not been recovered.