Frank Gehry Dies at 96, But His Barcelona Olympic and Global Architecture Masterpieces Shall Endure

News of Frank Gehry's passing today was another 2025 kick to the gut. What an imaginative, original creator he was.

As of this post, The New York Times obit team is still tweaking their tribute under the working headline Frank O. Gehry, Titan of Architecture, Dies at 96 with sidebars of sweeping images for Top 12 Works and an extensive appraisal. 

My earliest Gehry encounter was in the mid-1990s, spotting the gleaming, then recently opened Weisman Art Museum, aka WAM, on the Mississippi River hillside of the University of Minnesota campus. 

Sunlight glistened from the building's stainless-steel coating, with different effects from midday to sunset, much like the 2009 photo (right).

Exploring its galleries, finally visited years later (in 2004 or 2005) proved reminiscent of trips to another architect Frank -- specifically, Lloyd Wright's -- Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan with its nontraditional spaces and oblong or curvy rooms.

Speaking of Guggenheims, I distinctly recall clipping photos of Gehry's Bilbao masterpiece during the early days of my first PR job at Matlock (fall 1997) when my morning routine included mandatory reading of The Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for client or related industry news. 

On one of the morning reads around the October museum opening, photos from Spain's Guggenheim jumped off the page, and a visit to experience that building instantly entered my international travel wish list at a time when my first passport had not yet been stamped.  

Unknowingly, in November that year, on a first overseas visit to Barcelona, another of Gehry's icons appeared while touring the coastal 1992 Olympic Village, where his Peix (fish) structure is proudly perched (no pun intended) adjacent to the two towers built to house athletes. Even at night it twinkled, but I did not recognize it as Gehry. 

It took 21 years, but a visit to Guggenheim Bilbao was a "must" in a summer 2018 Spain-France-Andorra-Spain road trip with Valentina -- it took most of the day to explore every corner and curve, still marveling from all angles on an evening riverside walk and from atop the city's funicular-access cliffs (photo below left was museum view from hotel). 

Over the years, experiencing Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles -- a likely Cultural Olympiad venue for LA28 -- as well as The Stata Center in Boston, Chicago's Pritzker Pavillion and neighboring Pedestrian Bridge (featured in Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid), Manhattan's IAC Building and skyscraper on Spruce Street, each came into view. 

The 2017 IOC Commission Visit for the Paris 2024 Olympic bid was also punctuated by the committee's daytime visit (see photo right) to what became my second-favorite Gehry, the astounding Foundation Louis Vuitton, which last year hosted the Torch Relay and one of the biggest pre-Games galas. 

Valentina and I enjoyed an after-hours visit to the museum's showstopping exhibition of Jean-Michel Basquiat in Oct. 2018 (yes, we could not get enough of France that year) -- in many ways, Gehry's design was the best possible venue to experience the young painter's work. 

At the end of the aforementioned Spain road trip, we swam in the shadow of Gehry's Olympic fish while guests of the Barcelona '92 athlete housing-turned-hotel (we also could not get enough of Spain). 

Reflecting on Gehry's passing, this afternoon brought realization that around each of his creations, I was never the only passerby who stopped in their tracks, awestruck by the designs, or who lingered as participants on Slow Art Day, studying each line and curve. 

Even this past May, in Prague for the 2025 World Olympic Collectors Fair, spotting Gehry's "Dancing House" (right) co-designed with a Czech architect was ab exciting part of the weekend. 

It's unclear to me why Gehry did not contribute more to Olympic venue design, but then, sports arenas are not part of his extensive CV. The website of his firm is sparse on such information.

Though his Guggenheim Abu Dhabi opening date is yet unknown, I'll rest tonight dreaming of a future visit to this and other Gehry destination designs. 

Image credits: Top photo Getty via BBC; WAM photo via Wiki; headshot via this biography page; Peix with pool via this Port Olympic Barcelona page; exterior of Eight Spruce Street from The New York Times by Piotr Redlinski via this archive link; Foundation Louis Vuitton photo and Dancing House photo by Nicholas Wolaver. Guggenheim Bilbao photo with red bridge and photo below by Nicholas Wolaver. 

Guggenheim Presents "Alex Katz: Gathering"

When the High Museum of Art presented 60 works by Alex Katz in 2015, I learned and wrote about how the artist captures "quick things passing" as part of his craft. 

Borrowing lyrics from the Olympic anthem "One Moment in Time," Katz succeeds in enabling viewers of his works to "feel eternity" in frozen family memories, knowing glances of friends, still scenes from nature or portraits of his muse and wife, Ada, depicted 1,000+ times since they met and married in 1957.

So, when summer news reports emerged announcing the Guggenheim would present a "career retrospective" in the Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda, I marked my calendar for an autumn return to Manhattan for the potential assemblage of "must see masterpieces." 

Of course, curiosity piqued while wondering whether Katz's 1976 work "Olympic Swimmer" might appear (as it was absent at the High).

Though this five-ringed work is not presented in "Alex Katz: Gathering" on view through Feb. 20, there are dozens of other gorgeous and thoughtful canvases -- including some aquatic depictions -- as well as cutouts, collages and sketches that easily justified the special journey to Manhattan in November. 

Sadly, life and procrastination brought me to this point of posting a review just days before the exhibition closes, much later than intended when the museum press office kindly provided a media ticket for access.

If you are fortunate to be in or near the Upper East Side area through Monday, this gathering is well worth a visit. 

Though the works are presented chronologically for Guggenheim visitors to experience while ascending the iconic atrium ramp, once my ticket was scanned, I made a bee line to the elevator to enjoy the works top down. 

In my two-hour descent starting with the artist's most recent works, I enjoyed piecing together relevance to earlier works then affirming some hunches via the wall texts. 

Over here, an assortment of portraits. 

Over there, a docent trying her darndest to keep some third graders' attention on a backyard scene. 

New to my eyes and Katz awareness: the artist's many two-sided cutouts, sometimes life-sized, others as solo or grouped busts. A couple of the five-foot cutouts featuring a man and woman in 1970s attire were positioned as though chatting along the ramp's circular rail, while another cutout of a man seemed to be strolling toward a nearby painting.

While studying several works for a few minutes each, no singular Katz consistently stopped people in their tracks more that the large 1980 canvas titled "Song" featuring a trio of musicians at a piano, as well as "Cocktail Party" featuring an urban soiree of 1965. 

The exhibit also featured oversized flowers and dynamic portraits that resonated with this writer and Katz fan. I simply love his shoreline paintings depicting sunshine or moonlight dancing on the waters of their foregrounds. The eyes of his portraits always captivate my gaze as well. 

Indicative of the show's popularity in its early weeks, the museum was out of exhibition catalogues. Exiting through the gift shop empty-handed was OK, however, given the enrichment secured while viewing so many of the nonagenarian's works in one place. 

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver

Picasso And Chicago at Art Institute (See It!)

When trekking through Chicago, disappointment of "what could have been" (2016 Olympics) still crosses my mind. That October morning beside the Picasso sculpture and City Hall was a bummer.

But with each return to Chicago, new memories get forged, and the Chicago Art Institute's outstanding current exhibition "Picasso And Chicago" provided a great bridge to new cheer about the windy city and its rich ties to art and art history.

Chicago's Picasso show was not the first experienced in early 2013 -- a couple months ago the Guggenheim's P.R. team arranged tickets for "Picasso Black and White" (excellent). The Chicago exhibition rounded out a lot of the Picasso story for me, showcasing career details that did not previously resonate.

For instance, I had no idea Picasso created hundreds of ceramic items in one year of focus on this medium. "Picasso And Chicago" includes several examples, including a beautiful and tall work with four human figures (a modern take on the Greek urns on loan from the British Museum a couple of galleries from the special exhibition space).

Picasso also wrote hundreds of poems and two plays, creating illustrations to bring some of these works to life on paper or canvas. His tiny drawings are simply amazing in their detail.

The Art Institute show also taught more about Picasso's love life and the women who influenced the artist.

I loved discovering (spoiler alert) that when Chicago's mayor travelled to meet Picasso about the City Hall sculpture commission, the politician brought along works by famous Chicago-born artists, prompting Picasso's excited reaction (paraphrasing here), "Hemingway -- my friend! He's from Chicago?" and comments about how the master painter taught the master writer "everything he knows about bullfighting."

The exhibition is bookended by the history of Chicago's most famous sculpture, with the entryway showcase of a bronze model of the work, flanked by "The Blue Guitar" and speakers broadcasting news interviews from the sculpture unveiling event in downtown Chicago (as today, folks on the first day shared candid comments spanning the spectrum from instant love to perplexed reactions to the work).

One work stood out for this blogger -- "Peasant Woman With A Shawl" -- presented as the first Picasso that Chicago and American audiences viewed in the artist's first USA exhibition. A handful of massive canvases, several two-faced female portraits, and several of Picasso's 2,500+ prints round out the exhibition (250 works in all -- my head was spinning in a good way).

For those who visit "Picasso And Chicago" be sure to pick up the audio tour and museum card highlighting several additional Picasso that are in the museum but not included in the exhibition.

Many thanks to the Art Institute for setting up the blogger tickets. Many new happy memories forged in Chicago.

Now if we can just convince the mayor of Chicago to pursue the 2024 Olympic bid ...

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver