Casinos add Mir, Modigliani, Renoir to their lures
Page 2 of 2 -- Wynn had intended to name the resort Le Reve, after Picasso's painting by that name (''The Dream," 1932), which is on display in the collection. The artist's young mistress Marie-Thrse Walter sits back in her red chair, head tilted, peacefully asleep; the painting fetched one of the highest prices ever for a Picasso. Amedeo Modigliani's ''Nude on a Couch" (1917) is just as sensual a portrait. The voluptuous woman, unique among Modigliani's more common long, angular figures, looks back at the viewer from atop the soft white sofa.
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Wynn narrates the audio tour, providing far too much detail on each painting, perhaps making up for the small exhibit. But he has a sense of humor. About Andy Warhol's 1983 triptych (of who else?) ''Steve Wynn (Red, Gold, White)," the narrator chuckles and says, ''If you can stand it, you can look at the three pictures of me."
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The Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art continues to present temporary exhibits at Wynn's former address. The latest exhibit is 21 paintings by Claude Monet, a controversial loan from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, which opened Jan. 30. Critics have said the exhibit, in a for-profit gallery, lacks true intellectual or artistic merit and is simply a way for the MFA to make $1 million. Malcolm Rogers, MFA director, has defended the show, saying it is a way to bring art to people who otherwise might not be able to see it -- and make money for the MFA at the same time.
The Monets in question are displayed in two rooms, available for $15 admission to folks who need a breather from the poker tables and want to rest their weary eyes on something far more seductive than the queen of hearts.
Curator George Shackleford of the MFA selected paintings by Monet that best illustrate the painter's career and reflect the strengths of the museum's collection. They include Monet's work in Argenteuil in the 1870s, his landscapes of Antibes in the '80s, and masterpieces from his Giverny garden in the early 20th century.
Indeed, anyone new to art museums may find the exhibits in Vegas to their liking. More experienced aficionados may find more intriguing fare in another section of Bellagio. Here, they may sit enraptured as trapeze artists, high divers, and contortionists create their own innovative art above an oval pit of water in Cirque du Soleil's ''O." If that lover of harlequins, Picasso, were alive today, he might find these myriad performers just as imaginative as many of Vegas's museum offerings.
Stephen Jermanok is a freelancer in Newton who writes about the arts for Art & Antiques, 
