OKCMOA presents pieces exposing processes of Picasso, Rodin

OKLAHOMA CITY — It can be difficult to think beyond the usual impression of an art museum as a place where you go to simply appreciate the final products and masterworks of the great artists at arm’s length, awing at the genius and the vision and never considering the process.

But in August, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art opened a temporary installation designed to do just that: consider the process behind the artworks and the methods used to create them.

“Picasso and the Progressive Proof: Linocut Prints from a Private Collection” is a traveling exhibition on display at OKCMOA through January 5th intended to walk visitors through the painstaking, multi-phase process of linocut printmaking that art icon Pablo Picasso used throughout his career.

OKCMOA
OKCMOA Curator of Exhibitions Jessica Provencher explains one stage in the process Picasso used to create prints. (B.DICKERSON/Okla City Free Press)

Through multiple iterations of the same single work, viewers are given a rare peek into the challenging, time-consuming techniques required to plan, prep, and execute some artworks with a close-up look at the pieces at each step along the way.

Likewise, OKCMOA also unveiled a mammoth sculpture piece from Auguste Rodin that not only stands alone as the heaviest display in the museum’s history, but also sheds some similar light on the processes and techniques that Rodin put into his own works.

“Something like this, where it’s focused on process or printmaking, it can be very complex,” OKCMOA Curator of Exhibitions Jessica Provencher told OKC Free Press. “So we really did want to make sure everything is as clear as possible for visitors to understand such a complex process.”

Picasso’s process

While most fine art fans know Picasso for his hand-painted masterworks, many might not know that he also wholeheartedly embraced printmaking during his career to create smaller, more accessibly priced pieces for buyers.

“He created prints throughout his life, the first in 1899 when he was still a teenager, and then the last, 1972 at the age of 90,” Provencher said. “So in collaboration with his printers, he produced over 2400 prints in his life.”

Though he experimented with various techniques over the years, “Picasso and the Progressive Proof” zeroes in on his tryst with the linocut printmaking process in the later years of his life, offering guests a look at multiple iterations of single works to see the journey to the final prints.

OKCMOA
Stages of Picasso’s printmaking process in the OKCMOA exhibit, “Picasso and the Progressive Proof – Linocut Prints from a Private Collection” (B.DICKERSON/Okla City Free Press)
OKCMOA
The last two stages of the printmaking process in the OKCMOA exhibit, “Picasso and the Progressive Proof – Linocut Prints from a Private Collection” (B.DICKERSON/Okla City Free Press)

Picasso worked closely with printmaker Hidalgo Arnera during this linocut period, and you can almost see the correspondence and working relationship of the men as you move from step to step through the process, seeing the final prints come together after numerous tests and experiments.

It’s a glimpse into the actual thoughts, paths, and processes of an artist in the trenches of creation that museum visitors very rarely get to see.

In some cases, you can even literally see the correspondence between Picasso and Arnera.

“Arnera would often annotate the proofs for Picasso, Provencher explained, pointing out the handwritten text scribbled into the margins of some of the test proofs. “He would leave notes about the color combinations or the sequence of the plates for Picasso, and it’s great, because it really shows their process.”

Linocut printmaking

The linocut printmaking process might not be familiar to the average museumgoer, so the OKCMOA curators and staff have gone to great lengths to help explain the process and provide a better understanding of this process used by Picasso and Arnera that resulted in the pieces on display.

“So a linocut is basically almost like a stamp,” Provencher explained. “You take a block of linoleum and you carve it with your design and you basically leave what you want to remain. So it really works kind of like a stamp, but when you start working with multiple colors, it becomes much more complicated.”

OKCMOA
A progression of “pulls” through the press showing the addition of colors and details in the OKCMOA exhibit, “Picasso and the Progressive Proof – Linocut Prints from a Private Collection” (B.DICKERSON/Okla City Free Press)

To make the whole process more understandable to museum audiences – and to give guests an idea of just what exactly they’re looking at in the multiple test proofs on display – they’ve even included a full video that walks viewers through the linocut printmaking process.

“The video is actually from a paper conservator at the Harvard Art Museum,” said Provencher. “We went through a lot of videos to find the best one to include to really help people understand the process, and we’ve had so many visitors tell us that this one has really helped.”

The pieces on display in “Picasso and the Progressive Proof” used up to five different linocut color blocks, making the process much more complicated and meaning that a huge number of test proofs were required to calibrate the colors and alignments of the stamp-like blocks over days or even weeks.

“They would go through this process really every day for about eight years,” Provecher said. “And it really kind of demonstrates Picasso’s spontaneity, because they’re mostly done on scrap paper, just whatever paper Picasso had lying around. If you look closely, you can see [three] of these are done on the back of posters for an exhibition in the summer of 1957.”

Rodin’s ‘Shades’

In addition to “Picasso and the Progressive Proof” highlighting the process and techniques behind Picasso’s work, OKCMOA unveiled a massive sculpture by Rodin on temporary loan to the museum and also sought to showcase the processes that Rodin used as well.

This hulking casting of “Three Shades” by Auguste Rodin is a staggering example of the raw emotional power and exaggerated physicality of the sculpting great’s work, but also serves as a perfect representation for his own multi-iteration methods and trial-and-error processes.

“We really wanted to do a deep dive into the history of how this work came to be, as well as discussing the process, because that always comes up when I’ve given tours on Rodin,” said Curatorial Assistant Kristen Pignuolo. “People always want to hear and learn about his unique casting process.”

OKCMOA
“Three Shades” by Auguste Rodin – exhibition at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art (B.DICKERSON/Okla City Free Press)

Rodin’s own process also saw him regularly creating multiple iterations of the same works, experimenting with size, placement, material, and even intentional multiplication of figures, such as the Shades.

Originally designed and intended to simply be a very small part of a much larger sculpture project – “The Gates of Hell” – the “Three Shades” were eventually enlarged far beyond their intended size to become larger-than-life.

But if you look closely, you’ll see that it’s actually just one form multiplied into three identical castings and arranged to seem like a group.

“They’re all the same figure, they’re just rotated around each other,” said Pignuolo. “That’s one thing that he really liked to do, was to create multiples of a figure and manipulate their position to give people a different view.”

Process and weight

Much like the galleries that comprise “Picasso and the Progressive Proof,” the single gallery that houses Rodin’s “Three Shades” contains plenty of text and photographs to explain and describe the artist’s techniques and working methods, once again providing the rare peek into the process.

OKCMOA
“Three Shades” by Auguste Rodin – exhibition at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art (B.DICKERSON/Okla City Free Press)

What you won’t find in the “Three Shades” gallery, however, is any other art.

That’s because the sculpture is, by far, the heaviest and most massive single piece that OKCMOA has ever displayed, and it’s important to maintain the center of gravity and space out any additional weight.

“This is over 2000 pounds, which is even heavier than Rodin’s “Honore de Balzac” that we had here a couple years ago, which was about 1800 pounds,” Pignuolo explained. “So the ‘Three Shades’ will be here for the next two years, and it will stay right here. It’s definitely not getting moved around.”

“Picasso and the Progressive Proof: Linocut Prints from a Private Collection” is on display now through January 5th at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

Rodin’s “Three Shades” is currently on loan to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art from a private collection from now until 2026.
For more information, including museum hours, admissions, and more, visit okcmoa.com.


Author Profile

Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.