During Modernism Week, Feb. 12th – Feb. 21st, Heather James Fine Art invites visitors to explore the gallery’s extraordinary Modern Masters exhibition currently on display, featuring dozens of rarely seen artworks by Pablo Picasso and Alexander Calder.

The artwork of Picasso and Calder is the perfect counterpoint to mid-century modern architecture. Both artists epitomized new thinking, a break from tradition, and experimentation into new arenas of creativity. Young Picasso often shocked the world with his rejection of traditional perspective, while both Picasso and Calder’s vivid, bright colors evoke a stunning modernist aesthetic.

Picasso | Calder offers a rare opportunity to view modern masterworks up close without crowds and distractions. Curated by James Carona, co-owner of Heather James Fine Art, the exhibit brings an astonishing collection to the gallery of mostly privately-owned artwork by Picasso and Calder in a range of mediums to highlight the artists’ inventive and prolific careers.

The exhibit illustrates Pablo Picasso’s astonishing powers of invention; Picasso continually innovated and refreshed his work by experimenting with one style after another. More than 60 Picasso pieces are on display, including a number of paintings, prints, works on paper, and ceramics, including one of his last pieces, a 1970’s work on paper of a man smoking a pipe.

Almost two dozen Alexander Calder works are on display in the exhibit, including a five-foot wide standing mobile constructed circa 1940, petite stabiles, jewelry, prints, and a number of gouaches. Many of these artworks come from private collections and have never been exhibited. Other notable works have not been seen in decades, such as the Dairy Cow, a wooden sculpture that Calder made for a neighbor in 1928. The Dairy Cow was loaned to MoMA in 1943 and hasn’t been exhibited publically since.

Heather James Fine Art is located at 45188 Portola Avenue in Palm Desert and features a wide array of art ranging from Impressionist and Modern art to Post-War and Contemporary, American, Latin American, Old Master, Photography, Design, and Antiquities. For more information about the gallery and upcoming exhibitions, please visit our website www.heatherjames.com or call the gallery at 760-346-8926. The gallery is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

About Pablo Picasso:

Pablo Picasso is considered one of the greatest, most radical, and most influential artists of the 20th century. More than any other artist, Picasso defined Modern Art of the twentieth century by his establishment and development of one of its major movements, Cubism. Picasso also experimented, and eventually mastered, a number of mediums, including painting, the primary modes of printmaking, ceramic, and sculpture.

About Alexander Calder:

Alexander Calder was a prolific American artist who infused his artwork with wit and whimsy inspired by his early fascination with the circus. His childhood hobby of crafting objects from found materials evolved into his invention of mobiles, and kinetic sculptures composed of wires counterbalanced with thin metal fins that are set in motion by random air currents to create natural movement. In addition to these sculptures, he created stabiles, or static sculptures, paintings, gouaches, drawings, prints, jewelry, and tapestries.