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C hicagoans know their Picasso—or at least the 162 tons of steel standing tall in Richard J. Daley Plaza. But when that still-enigmatic sculpture was unveiled in 1967, its appearance was just the latest manifestation of the city's long relationship with the wildly inventive and mind-bogglingly productive artist. That relationship began in 1913, when, as host of the historic International Exhibition of Modern Art, the Art Institute became the first museum in the country to display Pablo Picasso's work. And it did so again and again, playing a key role in the artist's reputation and the American public's understanding of modern art. Today, the Art Institute possesses more than 400 works by the artist, and with "Picasso and Chicago," it celebrates those riches and the city's link to a man who reshaped the way we see art. The International Exhibition of Modern Art—more popularly known as the Armory Show, after the New York venue where it debuted in March 1913—attracted 200,000 visitors in Chicago. But not everyone, including the Art Institute's own director, William French, was enthralled by the work of such trailblazers as Constantin Brancusi, Henri Matisse, and Marcel Duchamp. After visiting the show in New York, he remarked, "I became depressed to think that people could be found to approve methods so subversive of taste, good sense, and education." When the show hit Chicago, the papers dismissed it. The Record-Herald had fun issuing a mock review under the byline Otto Nohn Behterr (ought to known better). Writing in the Chicago Inter-Ocean, University of Chicago art historian George Zug opined, "As far as real artistic merit is concerned, the International Exhibition is the poorest show of equal extent I have ever seen at the Art Institute." Even students at the School of the Art Institute protested the exhibition by staging a mock trial of Matisse and setting fire to reproductions of his work. The Armory Show did have its champions, including collector Arthur Jerome Eddy, who in 1914 published Cubists and Post-Impressionism, one of the first books in the country to tackle the subject. "One has to but look at PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRILET PATRICK/GETTY IMAGES (SCULPTURE); COURTESY OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO (PAINTING, SKETCHES). PREVIOUS PAGE: IMAGNO/GETTY IMAGES Self Portrait with Palette, 1906 84 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 082-087_MA_FEAT_Picasso_Winter13.indd 84 1/2/13 12:24 PM