It's common wisdom among American museums that if you schedule a French impressionism exhibit, they will come.
"Picasso to Warhol: 14 Modern Masters," the High Museum of Art's big fall show opening Saturday, presents something different from those luminous, crowd-pleasing pictures, but the Midtown museum nonetheless is expecting a crowd.
The High doesn't reveal attendance projections, but there are some early indicators of optimism that visitors will find the more challenging likes of Fernand Léger and Jackson Pollock as appealing as they do the celebrated Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
First, in anticipation of a good walk-up for the show, the museum moved the admissions desk from the middle of its Margaretta Taylor Lobby to the back wall, potentially allowing lines to stretch vertically across the lobby and over the bridge into the 1983 Richard Meier-designed building (now the Stent Family Wing). To help, it's hired additional Member and Guest Relations staff.
Also, the High already has broken its group sales record, selling 39,000 tickets. Notably, 36,000 of them are for school groups.
The opportunity to introduce (or reintroduce) visitors to the modern masters was one of the impulses behind High director Michael Shapiro's decision to strike a four-year partnership with New York's Museum of Modern Art that is bringing two big, broad exhibits and four "focus" shows to Atlanta through summer 2013. "Picasso to Warhol" and an exhibit yet to be announced for next summer constitute the two major surveys.
In addition to Picasso and Warhol, whose large galleries bookend the 129-work survey, the other artists represented are Léger, Pollock, Romare Bearden, Louise Bourgeois, Constantin Brancusi, Alexander Calder, Giorgio De Chirico, Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró and Piet Mondrian.
Following the flowing floor plan, museumgoers will move from one artist's grouping to the next, with open vistas encouraging guests to compare and contrast. To different extents, each of the 14 mini-exhibits explore the artists' stylistic development via a selection of works from different stages of their careers.
"Our hope is by [organizing the exhibit] monographically, that we really would be setting a new foundation for our audience, so they can have a more profound understanding of the modern world," Shapiro said. "We are a very modern, contemporary city, and we should, as a community, not only understand but embrace the pioneers of modern art."
The 14 were selected by MoMA and High curators because they expanded notions of what art could be, inventing new styles of expression as the 20th century unfolded, from cubism to abstraction to sculptural mobiles and by employing alternative media such as film, collage and silkscreen.
Pollock, quoted in the exhibit's introductory wall text, sets the tone: "Modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements. It seems that the modern painter cannot express this age ... in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any past culture. Each age finds its own technique."
The High is trotting out a 21st-century technique to enhance the experience of viewing 20th-century classics including Matisse's "Dance (I)," Picasso's "Night Fishing at Antibes," Johns' "Map" and Brancusi's "Bird in Space." It's introducing ArtClix, a free smartphone app that allows guests to snap a photo of an individual artwork to access unique text and audio, create postcards to share with friends via social media, join the ArtClix Community to discuss pieces with other visitors, and engage with museum staff.
Exhibit preview
"Picasso to Warhol: 14 Modern Masters"
Opening Saturday, through April 29. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; until 8 p.m. Thursdays; noon-5 p.m. Sundays. $18; $15, students and seniors; $11, ages 6-17; free, children 5 and younger and members. High Museum of Art, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-4444, www.high.org.
Coming Sunday in Living & Arts: High Museum modern and contemporary art curator Michael Rooks shares insights into four of the masterworks; and a Q&A with MoMA director Glenn Lowry.
