The Norton Simon Museum exhibition opening on October 20 featured just two paintings: Jean-Auguste-Dominque Ingres’ Madame Moitessier (1856) and Pablo Picasso’s Woman with a Book (1932). The latter is a response to the former and, though made seventy-six years apart, the effect of the two together is dazzling. Far from leaving Ingres’ earlier painting behind in the dust of history, Picasso’s knock-off–or, homage–reinvigorates our interest in Ingres’s original. Hung together in a small gallery at the end of a very long corridor, the two masterpieces vie for attention in a way that greatly enhances both of them.

Pablo Picasso, “Woman with a Book,” 1932. © The Norton Simon Museum

The Norton Simon Museum
411 West Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91105
On view through January 30, 2023