Picasso in the Suburbs

The antebellum mansion on a hill sprawls into a neighboring apartment complex where Hendersonville ends and Madison begins. Like a miniature Cheekwood, it seems like the last place one of the state’s most dynamic arts organizations would call home. But since early September, Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center has been home to “Unknown Picasso: Selections from the Marina Picasso Estate Collection.” Thankfully, Middle Tennesseans have one more weekend to see the best art exhibition in the region in the last few years.

Known as much for his tumultuous lovelife as the cubist art he pioneered, Picasso’s career spanned the better part of the 20th century. However, the lithographs on display at Monthaven demonstrate the artist's versatility–one that goes far beyond the asymmetrical faces that entered the pop-culture lexicon to such an extent they have become borderline stereotypical. As the exhibit proves, Picasso was as much traditionalist as trailblazer, creating realist portraits, sketches that could pass for New Yorker cartoons, and the heavy-hitting cubism of his Blue period and beyond.

The decades-long battle to control Picasso’s estate and his horrendous record as a romantic partner have nearly overshadowed his artistic legacy, but the works on display paint an intimate portrait of a father and husband who fomented the counterculture while enamored with the family around him.

The granddaughter of Picasso, Marina, earned official heir status after the artist’s death in 1973 in the wake of court proceedings that resulted in more than $30 million in legal fees. Though she inherited at least 10,000 works of art, Marina has devoted as much of her time to sustaining orphanages in Vietnam with proceeds from the estate as ensuring Picasso’s work endures for future generations.

Considering the personal nature of the paintings on display, the estate has not previously lent them to major Picasso exhibitions. However, Marina commissioned the prints of the never-before-seen pieces from renowned artist Marcel Salinas, who created the pieces by hand from hand-drawn lithographic plates.

In a town best known for incubating Taylor Swift, such an impressive exhibit may seem like an anomaly. But the exhibit is Monthaven’s second Picasso exhibition in six years after the groundbreaking show of the artist’s ceramics in 2019, In addition to its impressive exhibitions (a new one featuring Disney artist James Coleman begins next week), Monthaven has made a name for itself for its commitment to veterans, including an annual exhibition and art therapy classes.

In a time of punishing property taxes and dwindling city services, Nashville’s ring counties have come into their own–cultivating outposts of the Athens of the South that have become as much of a draw as the offerings within the city limits. A visit to Monthaven’s Picasso exhibit before it ends Sunday is a must. But so are repeated trips to a center that is fast becoming one of the area’s most important arts institutions.