A Feb. 8 preview for the exhibition “Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914,” which opens Feb. 13 at New York's Museum of Modern Art, attracted more than the usual art elite, including R.E.M.’s songwriter Michael Stipe.

The MoMA exhibition offers insight into Pablo Picasso's creative process during his pivotal period of material and structural experimentation preceding World War I, placing his work in the context of this breakthrough era in 20th-century art.

Some 70 closely connected collages, constructions, drawings, mixed-media paintings, and photographs have been assembled from over 30 public and private collections worldwide.