Beach Bums by Pablo

When Picasso's 5,000-lb. array of bronze Bathers arrived in Houston last week. Museum of Fine Arts Director James Johnson Sweeney took an anxious look around the museum's Mies van der Rohe-designed Cullinan Hall, wondering where to put them. Then Sweeney, who used to run various museums on the East Coast, recalled that he was in Texas and quickly built a swimming pool for The Bathers' ponderous plunge.

Now Picasso's lady diver stands poised and suspenseful on a sturdy diving board, a child bather lurks in water up to his chest, and the four remaining figures idle at poolside. like beach bums anywhere. Houston's museumgoers were sufficiently startled to pronounce the whole exhibition "Sweeney's Swimming Hole." but the Houston Chronicle was impressed: "It would seem." the paper said, "that for the first time the challenge of the hall's proportions has been met with sculptures of the perfect heroic dimensions."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.