ART / SNEAK PEEK : THE EARLY PICASSO AWAITS D.C. VISITORS.

If you happen to be a frequent East Coast flier, or you're mulling over the idea of joining the Clinton cabinet, boy, does the National Gallery of Art have a blockbuster for you.

Roughly since the Reagan administration began, America's unofficial First Art Museum has been second to none in hosting splashy, gotta-see exhibitions that are the talk of the season. Brand-name artists are to the National Gallery what brand-name entertainers are to the Oscars.

And though the museum's populist approach has a few vocal detractors, the gallery's customary out-the-door mobs indicate that it's onto a winning formula.

Thus it's no surprise that ``Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906'' will premiere at the National Gallery on March 30 and remain there for four months before moving onto Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. So far, those are its only scheduled U.S. dates.

Touted as the most comprehensive survey ever assembled of works created by Picasso ``between the ages of 11 (!) and 25'' (exclamation mine), the show is made possible by the corporate sponsorship of Bell Atlantic, as well as by generous lendings from the Musee Picasso in Paris and the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, among others.

It will include gouaches, oils, charcoal drawings, bronzes, ceramics and, of course, such formative paintings as ``Girl With Bare Feet'' (1895), ``Crouching Woman'' (1902) and ``At the Circus'' (1905), which apparently has nothing to do with the White House press corps.

Get in line now, and you may be able to see the show before it closes July 27. For information, call [phone].

It's a small world: Art, architecture and miniature modeling are keeping close company these days in greater Los Angeles.

At the Museum of Contemporary Art through July 27, you'll find large-scale replicas of Frank Gehry's bold, incompletely realized vision for the planned Walt Disney Concert Hall. Though legal and financial wrangling have shelved the project, at least temporarily, the display at California Plaza testisfies to the power of a dream deferred.

Let's hope that a less precarious fate awaits the Santa Monica Museum of Art, which on Jan. 10 will open ``Unveiling the Future,'' an exhibition of drawings, scale models and other schemes-in-progress for the museum's new, 9,600-square-feet space at Bergamot Station Arts Center. Drafted by the architectural firm Narduli/Grinstein, which won plaudits for its redesign of the quake-damaged California Institute of the Arts campus, the display will be on view through March 2.

Open noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, the display is at 2437 Main St. between Pico and Ocean Park boulevards. For information, call [phone].

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Photo: ``Boy With a Pipe'' (1905) is among the Picassos slated for the National Gallery exhibition.