Art Appreciation Lecture Series 2014 Realism to : European art and culture 1848-1936

Lecture title : , Surrealism and the Spanish civil war

Lecturer: Jaime Tsai

5/6 November 2014

Lecture summary:

With reference to Picasso’s personal life and avant-garde milieu of the 1930s, this lecture will explore his masterpiece Guernica not only as a powerful memorial to the destruction of the Basque town, but also as the culmination of a distinctively surrealist personal mythology. I will focus in particular on Picasso’s recurring motifs of the bull and minotaur as they evolve in his paintings and prints of this period.

Slide list:

*1. , Guernica, 1937, oil on canvas, 349.3 x 776.6 cm, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid 2. Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907, oil on canvas, 243.9 x 233.7 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York 3. Picasso, Guitar, Sheet Music and Glass, November 1912, Cut-and-pasted wallpaper, newspaper, sheet music, colored paper, paper, and hand-painted faux bois paper, charcoal, and gouache on paperboard, 48 x 36.5 cm, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio 4. Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, , 1934, Gelatin silver print, 25.2 x 20cm, Getty Institute, Los Angeles 5. Henri Rousseau, The Dream, 1910, Oil on canvas, 204.5 x 298.5 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 6. Francisco Goya, The unlucky death of Pepe Illo in the ring at Madrid, 1816, plate 33 from La Tauromaquia (The art of bullfighting) series (c. 1815-1816), etching, burnished aquatint, drypoint and burin, 20.1 x 30.7 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 7. Picasso, Femme Torero I, 1934, etching, 49.5 x 69.6 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 8. Picasso, Woman with Yellow Hair, December 1931 Oil on canvas, 100 x 81 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York *9. Picasso, Femme Torero II, 1934, etching, 29.7 x 23.6 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 10. Picasso, Minotaur, 1933, india ink on blue paper, 47 x 62 cm, Art Institute of Chicago 11. André Masson, Minotaur, 1942, Pastel and charcoal with stumping on blue-gray laid paper 639 x 483 mm, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago 12. Picasso, Marquette for the cover of the Surrealist journal Minotaure, 1933 *13. Picasso, , March 23, 1935, etching and engraving, 49.6 x 69.6 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York 14. Picasso, Blind Minotaur Led by a Girl through the Night, 1934, , (printed 1939), Aquatint

Proudly sponsored by

15. Salvador Dali Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War), 1936, oil on canvas, 99.9 x 100 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia *16. Salvador Dalí Autumnal Cannibalism, 1936, Oil paint on canvas, 651 x 65 mm, Tate, London 17. Picasso, Dream and Lie of Franco I, 1937, Etching and sugar-lift aquatint, 31.6 x 42.1 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 18. Picasso, Dream and Lie of Franco II,1937, aquatint, 31.6 x 42.1 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 19. Man Ray, Portrait of with small hands, 1936, New York, private collection 20. Hugo Herdeg, Guernica in situ, Spanish Pavilion, World’s Fair, Paris, 1937 21. Detail of sarcophagus depicting the Battle of the Amazons, marble, c. 140-150 CE. Roman, Musei Capitolini, Rome 22. Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (28th July 1830), 1830, Oil on canvas, 260 x 325 cm, Louvre, Paris (shown at the 1831 Salon) 23. Francisco de Goya, The Third of May 1808 in Madrid - the executions on Principe Pio hill, 1814, oil on canvas, 268 x 347 cm, Prado, Madrid 24. Francisco Goya, The Disasters of War, pl. 39: Grande hazaña! Con muertos! (A Heroic Feat! With dead Men! ) 1810-1815, etching, 154 x 200 mm, British Museum, London 25. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Romulus Victorious over Acron, 1812, oil on canvas, 265 x 530cm, Louvre, Paris 26. Dora Maar, 'Guernica' in progress, State 1,2,3,4,5 and 9, May - June 1937, Grands- Augustins studio, gelatin silver photographs, 24.1 x 30.5 cm, Collection Dora Maar, Musée National Picasso, Paris

Reference:

Arnheim, Rudolph, The Genesis of a Painting: Picasso's Guernica (Berkley: University of California Press, 2006)

Baldassari, Anne, The Surrealist Picasso (Paris: Flammarion, 2006)

Clark, T.J., Picasso and Truth: From to Guernica (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013)

Greenley, Robin, Surrealism and the Spanish Civil War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006)

Images:

Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937, oil on canvas, 349.3 x 776.6 cm, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Pablo Picasso, Femme Torero II, 1934, etching, 29.7 x 23.6 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Picasso, Minotauromachy, March 23, 1935, etching and engraving, 49.6 x 69.6 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Salvador Dalí Autumnal Cannibalism, 1936, Oil paint on canvas, 651 x 65 mm, Tate, London