The last time we cats were at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the staff told us that an early Picasso from their current Berte Weill exhibit had been vandalized by climate activists and removed from display.
The painting was one of the works that caught Weill's eye after she opened her Paris gallery in 1901. Pablo was just a kid then, but as with other then-unknown or underappreciated artists, Weill saw his potential, and bought three paintings from him. (Her story is worth checking out — like a lot of women, she was pretty much erased by art historians and is just now being rediscovered and celebrated.)
Courtesan with a Jeweled Collar had a glass cover and wasn't damaged in the attack. But its frame needed some fixing. Now, it's back. Gives us a good excuse to revisit the Weill exhibit, which is excellent.
Meanwhile, a note to climate activists:
You are idiots. Trying to damage or destroy works of art may get you attention, but it turns people off, bigly. We agree on the urgency of global warming, but throwing paint at a Picasso not only sets the cause back, it puts you in the same category as the nutcase who vandalized Michelangelo's Pietà . If you do this, you suck. We cats HISS.
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