Star-filled display of modern art in Houston

Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts has welcomed a “greatest hits” compilation of modern art.

The museum received nearly carte-blanche access to the world-renowned collections of 20th century art at New York’s Museum of Modern Art for an exhibition running through Jan. 4.

“This is unique,” said Barry Walker, curator of 20th century art and of prints and drawings at the Houston museum. “They do lend to particular shows, but for a show like this -- this is once in a lifetime. We’re just so thrilled to have this coup.”

The result is “The Heroic Century: The Museum of Modern Art Masterpieces, 200 Paintings and Sculptures.”

“We see the show as an opportunity to walk our audience through the history of modern art,” said Walker, who acknowledges modern art, so much of it abstract, does not appeal to everyone.

“A lot of people when they get to modern art, a wall goes up,” he said. “A lot of these are so famous and you don’t think of them as modern art. I think it gives a clear visual history of how certain themes started and evolved and how some artists responded to others.

“Not everyone is going to love everything. But if we can get people in because they want to see the Van Gogh and they get to see Picasso, then we’ve done our job.”

The show, some four years in the planning, has its only U.S. stop in Houston. After the exhibition closes, it heads to Germany for its only other showing, at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie.

The pieces, many of them making their first appearances outside New York City, became available while MoMA is under construction for expansion. The Manhattan museum, which houses the largest collection of modern art in the United States, opened in 1929 as the first public institution devoted to modern and contemporary art. It moved to a temporary gallery, MoMA Queens, across the East River, a year ago when major construction for the $600-million renovation got underway.

Peter Marzio, director of the Houston museum, said that when he learned several years ago of MoMA’s planned hiatus, he jokingly suggested to his counterpart there, Glenn Lowry, to “send me all your great works.”

His joke was taken seriously.

“A couple of years later, I got the call,” Marzio said. “This will probably never happen again. That’s my guess.”

Divided into eight sections, every turn through the chronologically arranged exhibition displays virtuoso works of artists who are the icons of the last 100 years, from Picasso, Monet and Matisse to Dali, Pollock and Warhol.

Works include Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”; Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory,” maybe the most famous surrealist painting; and Picasso’s “Girl Before a Mirror.”