Maquette for Richard J. Daley Center Sculpture

Modern Art

1964

Pablo Picasso
Spanish, active France, 1881–1973

Chicago’s collection of public art was initiated on August 15, 1967, when Mayor Richard J. Daley dedicated an untitled sculpture commonly known as “The Picasso” in Chicago’s new Civic Center (now the Richard J. Daley Center). Just four years earlier, architect William Hartmann of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill had approached Pablo Picasso with the commission. The artist accepted and crafted two steel maquettes; he kept one in his studio and gave the other to the architect to use in planning. The sculpture’s presence inspired private and public investment in more works for the cityscape over the years, including recent additions in nearby Millennium Park.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Modern Art

Artist: Pablo Picasso
Title: Maquette for Richard J. Daley Center Sculpture
Place: Spain (Artist's nationality)
Date: 1964
Medium: Simulated and oxidized welded steel
Dimensions: 104.8 × 69.9 × 48.3 cm (41 1/4 × 27 1/2 × 19 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Pablo Picasso
Reference Number: 1966.379
Copyright: © 2018 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

“The Chicago Picasso,” Progressive Architecture (November 1966), p. 66 (ill.).
Mahroni Sharp Young, “Letter from U.S.A. From Wildenstein to Wilderness,” Apollo 84 (December 1966), p. 504–5, fig. 8.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report (1966–1967), pp. 26–27 (ill.).
Chicago Picasso Dedication program (August 15, 1967) (ill.).
Lael Wertenbaker, The World of Picasso (New York: Time-Life Books, 1967), p. 153 (ill.).
“A Picasso Statue for Chicago,” The Burlington Magazine 109:766 (January 1967), pp. 34–36, figs. 68 and 70.
Burton Wasserman, “Picasso: The Touch of Magic,” Art Education 21:4 (April 1968), p. 29 (ill.).
Werner Spies, Pablo Picasso: Das plastiche Werk (Stuttgart: Gerd Hatje, 1971), pp. 297 and 315, no. 643 (ill.).
Clarence Page, “Giant Iron Sculpture: Picasso Leaves His Mark on the City,” Chicago Tribune (April 9, 1973), section 1, p. 6.
Roberto Otero, Forever Picasso: An Intimate Look at his Last Years (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1974), pp. 46, 50, 52–55 (ill.).
Roberto Otero, “It’s more charming this way: How the master made us a gift,” Chicago Guide, vol. 23, no. 10 (October 1974), pp. 86–87.
Marilyn McCully, A Picasso Anthology: Documents, Criticism, Reminiscences (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1981), pp. 266–267 (ill.).
Sally Fairweather, Picasso’s Concrete Sculptures (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1982), p. 85.
Patricia Balton Stratton, “Chicago Picasso,” MA thesis, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., 1982, fig. 4.
Milwaukee Art Museum, Controversial Public Art: From Rodin to di Suvero, exh. cat. (Milwaukee, Wis.: Milwaukee Art Museum, 1983), p. 40, cat. 32.
Sylvie Forestier, Pablo Picasso, La Guerre et la Paix (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1991), pp. 83–84, fig. 66.
Carsten-Peter Warncke, Pablo Picasso 1881–1973 II (Cologne: Benedikt Taschen, 1992), p. 579 (ill.).
Werner Spies, Picasso: Das Plastiche Werk (Stuttgart: Gerd Hatje, 1998), pp. 370 and 403, no. 643.2b (ill.).
The Picasso Project, Picasso’s Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, and Sculpture: A Comprehensive Illustrated Catalogue 1885–1973, The Sixties II 1964–1967 (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, 2002), p. 133, no. 64–373 (ill.).
La epoca de Picasso: donaciones a los museos americanos (Santander: Fundación Marcelino Botín, 2004), pp. 43 and 247.
Michael Fitzgerald, Picasso and American Art, Exh. cat. (Yale University Press, 2006), p. 258, ill. 260, pl. 133.
Stephanie D’Alessandro and Renée DeVoe Mertz, The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2014), 13, fig. 5 (color ill.).

London, Tate Gallery, Picasso Sculpture, Ceramics, Graphic Work, June 9–August 13, 1967, p. 108, cat. 203 (ill.).
New York, Museum of Modern Art, The Sculpture of Picasso, October 9, 1967–January 7, 1968, pp. 206 and 225, cat. 204 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Picasso in Chicago, February 3–March 31, 1968, hors cat..
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Picasso Retrospective, May 1–September 16, 1980, p. 442 (ill.).
Milwaukee Art Museum, Controversial Public Art: From Rodin to di Suvero, October 21, 1983–January 15, 1984, p. 40, cat. 32.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Picasso and American Art, September 28, 2006–January 28, 2007, pp. 254, 258, 260, pl. 133, and 387; traveled to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, February 25–May 28 2007, and Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, June 17–September 9, 2007.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Picasso Sculpture, September 14, 2015–February 7, 2016; Paris, Musée Picasso, March 8-August 28, 2016.

The artist; given to the Art Institute, 1966.

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