Picasso Panorama

ROOM GUIDE PICASSO PANORAMA FONDATION BEYELER PICASSO PANORAMA INTRODUCTION January 13—May 5, 2019 Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), hailed as one of the most important artists of all time, exercised a uniquely powerful influence on the art of the twentieth century. Fondation Beyeler, which holds over thirty of his works, contains one of the largest and finest Picasso collections in the world. To the museum’s founders, Ernst and Hildy Beyeler, Picasso embodied the quintessential artist. Over the decades, more than a thousand original works by Picasso passed through their hands, and they devoted numerous exhibitions to him in their gallery. The Beyelers also established a close friendship with the artist. Their collection of Picasso paintings, works on paper and sculptures, extending from his early Cubist period to the works of his final years, is supplemented by loans from the Anthrax Collection and the Rudolf Staechelin Family Trust, among others. A grand panorama, spanning the entire range of Picasso’s visual worlds from 1907 to 1972, unfolds before the viewer. At the same time, the show is a continuation, through selected examples, of the exhibition The Young PICASSO – Blue and Rose Periods, which focuses on the artist’s early work. Thus, the Fondation Beyeler is temporarily Cover: Pablo Picasso Buste de femme au chapeau (Dora), 1939 (Detail) transformed into a unique Picasso museum. Bust of Woman with Hat (Dora) Oil on canvas, 55 x 46.5 cm Photo: Peter Schibli, Basel The presentation of the collection has been curated by © 2018 Succession Picasso / ProLitteris, Zurich Dr. Raphaël Bouvier ROOM 2 ROOM 3 Still Life Surrealist Tendencies Picasso’s oeuvre is characterised by enormous creativity Pablo Picasso spent most of his life in France. and diversity. The still lifes presented in this room In Paris he moved in Surrealist circles, participating in offer impressive evidence of the artist’s incessant quest the group’s exhibitions, although he himself was never for new forms of representation. an official member. This creative period is characterised Only a few objects are depicted in Cruche, bol et citron, not least by the artist boldly subordinating external the volumes of which Picasso articulated with wild, appearances—such as figures and objects—to his intense brushstrokes. By contrast, in Verre, bouteille, unfettered imagination. This is also the case in Femme guitare (‘Ma Jolie’), a work from the artist’s Cubist phase, dans un fauteuil (1927), which represents the subject we rather sense the individual objects than actually of the model in the studio. Here, according to the title, see them. The stripped-down guitar, glass, and bottle, we gaze at a seated woman—but is she really still along with the table top and leg are arranged as if recognisable or such, or has she instead been dissolved floating on top of each other on the picture surface. among the sharply cut, geometric forms? With her teeth The two guitars in Instruments de musique sur une table bared, the shrill yellow figure pushes upwards through also seem to levitate. The generous forms, fine white the coloured zones and structures of the picture. Her lines, and earthy colours in this painting generate a breasts ‘roll’ down the black plane on the left. The chair harmonious atmosphere. The still life La bouteille de vin, is merely hinted at and recalls a mirror or picture frame. on the other hand, with its many ‘colour shards’, suggests a painted collage. In its effortless balance between overall structure and detail, this work shows how Picasso mastered highly complex compositions in a virtuosic manner. ROOM 3 ROOM 4 Marie-Thérèse Walter Dora Maar In the dramatic painting Le sauvetage we see three Picasso spent the Second World War in Paris, which women. All of them bear the facial features of was then occupied by the National Socialists. Although Marie-Thérèse Walter, whom Picasso met in 1927 the occupying power regarded him as a ‘degenerate’ and who became his lover and muse. The figure in the artist, he was spared from persecution but not permitted middle is being gently rescued from the water. She to exhibit his art. Withdrawn in his studio, he created appears to breathe, barely still alive. The three women sombre and powerful paintings. His works from the link up into a single gesture that spans all three of their war years make it clear that Picasso reacted directly to bodies. In the depiction of the standing and rescued the contemporaneous threat with his art. Dominated figure we can see a direct ‘model’ for the woman by black, white, and grey tones, the range of colours in and child that the artist painted five years later, in 1937, pictures such as Femme assise dans un fauteuil (Dora), in his monumental picture Guernica. Buste de femme sur fond gris, and Tête de femme As a work in the collection, Le sauvetage possesses recalls Picasso’s epochal achievement, Guernica, from special significance beyond just this art-historical 1937, which takes the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War reference: it is also one of twenty-six objects that as its subject. A number of the work’s key figures Ernst Beyeler, on a visit to Picasso, was allowed reappear in other compositions, such as the weeping personally to select for purchase from the artist’s stock woman in La femme qui pleure. of pictures—an honour granted to very few individuals. The photographer Dora Maar, Picasso’s lover and muse, was the artist’s most important model during these war years. ROOM 5 ROOM 5 The Late Work: Sheet Metal Sculptures Grisaille: Painting in Grey Picasso was eighty years old when he conceived of In Nu couché jouant avec un chat and L’enlèvement des the sheet metal sculptures Femme au chapeau, Sabines Picasso dispensed with all chromatic colours. Tête de femme, and Petite femme aux bras écartés. He painted L’enlèvement des Sabines in 1962, at These works—half painting, half sculpture—are among the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In this vast the most astonishing inventions in the artist’s late (and violent) work he quotes different paintings from the work. Time and again, the draughtsman, painter, and history of art, concentrating them into a highly dramatic, sculptor explored the relationship between two- and apocalyptic image. The knight’s head, the skull, and three-dimensionality. In these sculptures made of sheet the horse’s deadly hoof are placed exactly over the metal, the exploration takes place directly before our backward-turned head of the defenceless woman, who eyes, in real space. The volume of the figure is formed appears to be tumbling out of the scene right in front on the one hand through the folds of the material of the viewer. and on the other hand through the superimposition of In his late work Picasso developed his free and expressive several layers, which throw shadows and generate painting style further. With broad brushstrokes and different perspectives. As the viewer moves around the lavish gestures, he created monumental images, including sheet metal figure, intriguing shifts, surprising layerings numerous female nudes. These had been of great and gaps are revealed, offering new views and insights. significance for the artist from the early years on, and he often created his large-format paintings in a single day. A lightness as well as pleasure in producing the work appear to be reflected in the picture’s subject: in Nu couché jouant avec un chat, the reclining woman plays with a kitten. Here, her tickling feather can surely be seen as an allusion to Picasso’s self-assured, loose painting style. ROOM 6 ROOM 7 Van Gogh, Cézanne, non-European art Drawings and Prints Picasso’s works have been passionately collected, but In this room Picasso’s works on paper from various the artist himself was also an art collector. He dreamed creative periods are brought together. The oldest drawing, of having a Van Gogh and owned paintings by Cézanne, Tête d’homme (Tête moustachue), was done in Matisse, and Henri Rousseau, among others, as well as 1910 or 1912. sculpture from Africa. Picasso’s interest in non-European The pastel Tête de femme is especially characteristic sculpture and masks is reflected in his early Cubist works. of Picasso’s classicist phase, in the early 1920s. This formal affinity between the two shows how he sought The artist modelled the imposing woman’s head like a to both expand and transcend the European art canon. sculptor and thus created an imaginary sculpture. In Femme en vert (Dora) he placed his lover Dora Maar, In the late 1930s Picasso—influenced by Surrealism rendered as a creature part-human, part-animal, in a and in particular the Spanish Civil War—developed narrow space. Buttoned up and filling the picture, she highly emotional, expressive pictures of women. gazes frontally at the beholder like a powerful cult figure. La femme qui pleure I is harrowing testimony to extreme Her hands are conspicuously folded and thus contribute grief and threat. Here, Picasso’s companion Dora to the taut energy emitted by the work. The significance Maar is represented as a woman of sorrows, with long, of Femme en vert (Dora) for the Beyeler Collection is nail-shaped tears lying on her cheek. revealed in its juxtaposition with Cézanne’s painting Madame Cézanne à la chaise jaune (1888–90). The direct comparison highlights several similarities in terms of composition and motifs—for Picasso an imaginary test of strength with one of his great role models. ROOM 8 Please tell us your opinion about the The Final Years ROOM GUIDE PICASSO PANORAMA ++ + ± – – – In a race with death, Picasso painted numerous Overall impression pictures bursting with eroticism, which at the same time Content reveal a certain degree of despair or grief.

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