Presse release, March 19, 2019
Swisscom and Fondation Beyeler bring a genuine Picasso to a Swiss living room
Swisscom is the main partner for the unique exhibition at Fondation Beyeler, “The Young PICASSO – Blue and Rose Periods”. Together with Fondation Beyeler, Swisscom is now launching #myprivatepicasso, a special project bringing a valuable painting from this renowned collection of artworks by Pablo Picasso into a regular Swiss home for one day.
The #myprivatepicasso collaboration between Fondation Beyeler and Swisscom is as novel as Picasso himself. On 16 April 2019, the 1939 masterpiece, Buste de femme au chapeau (Dora), from the renowned Beyeler Collection will be loaned to a private home in Switzerland for just one day. It could be a family home, shared student housing or someone living on their own: In fact, anyone living in Switzerland can apply for this extraordinary opportunity between 19 March and 1 April. The eventual winner, that is, the individual or individuals in whose home the artwork will be displayed, will be whoever comes up with the most original idea – as voted by the public and a judging panel made up of Fondation Beyeler and Swisscom representatives.
Made possible by networking Moving such a valuable painting outside the museum environment and into an ordinary Swiss home is only possible thanks to the networking and secure transmission of sensitive data offered by the Swisscom network. Security experts from Swisscom and Fondation Beyeler will be able to monitor the painting continuously, and its networked frame will provide a constant stream of important environmental data about the picture. Swisscom and Fondation Beyeler have developed a smart frame for the masterpiece Buste de femme au chapeau (Dora) for #myprivatepicasso. This will measure the ambient temperature and air humidity, provide the GPS position of the painting and sound an alarm if there is any unauthorised movement.
Picasso – the artist of the century for everyone Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) is one of the most famous artists of our time. His works hang in the great art museums in the world. In the current Picasso exhibition at Fondation Beyeler, visitors can gain insights into the artist's Blue and Rose periods. The paintings from this creative period are among the most beautiful and emotional in modern art. The exhibition at Fondation Beyeler is being celebrated as one of the European cultural highlights of the year. The foundation behind the most visited art museum in Switzerland aims to bring modern art to a wider public and awaken the interest of young people in art. The intention behind the collaboration between Fondation Beyeler and Swisscom is to bring Picasso closer to the Swiss public.
Sam Keller, Director of Fondation Beyeler, and Urs Schaeppi, CEO Swisscom, explain: . “Our aim is to bring art to a wider public, especially those who may be infrequent museum visitors. The #myprivatepicasso project with Swisscom is one way of doing this. Valuable cultural assets such as Pablo Picasso's Buste de femme au chapeau (Dora) are usually only loaned to museums with the highest security. Thanks to the innovative technology of our partner Swisscom, however, we are able to bring this artwork securely into any Swiss home,” explains Sam Keller of Fondation Beyeler. . “With #myprivatepicasso, Fondation Beyeler and Swisscom are combining art and technology to stage the most unique event. This is only possible with the best network, secure transmission and a partner such as Fondation Beyeler. Moreover, it supports our vision of making simple use of the opportunities of a networked future. To this end, Swisscom invests around CHF 1.7 billion every year in security and expanding its infrastructure in Switzerland,” says Urs Schaeppi, CEO Swisscom.
For more information and to apply, visit: www.myprivatepicasso.ch
The exhibition “The Young PICASSO – Blue and Rose Periods” is organised by Fondation Beyeler with the support of Musées d’Orsay und de l’Orangerie, Paris, and the Musée National Picasso-Paris.
Further information: Swisscom Ltd Media Service CH-3050 Bern Telefon: +41 58 221 98 04 E-Mail: [email protected]
Fondation Beyeler Silke Kellner-Mergenthaler Head of Communications Telefon: + 41 61 645 97 21 E-Mail: [email protected]
Bern and Riehen/Basel, March 19, 2019
Notes to Editors
Picasso’s masterpiece Buste de femme au chapeau (Dora), 1939 At the beginning of September 1939, at the start of World War II, Picasso travelled to Royan on the French Atlantic coast, where he painted Buste de femme au chapeau (Dora) (Bust of Woman with Hat (Dora)) on 30 November. The work depicts Picasso's partner and muse at the time, the French artist Dora Maar (1907-1997). She was the subject of numerous paintings and sculptures between the mid-1930s and early 1940s, symbolising both a suffering and at the same time somewhat menacing figure of a woman. In Buste de femme au chapeau (Dora), we can see how Picasso, with his typical combination of a frontal and profile view of the face, takes a new approach to and challenges the conventions of portrait painting. The history of the artwork itself is no less eventful: Seized by the National Socialists in 1940, it was returned to its former owner Paul Rosenberg after the war, before being added to the collection of Ernst and Hildy Beyeler in 1994 following various stopping points in America and Japan. From the 1960s it was exhibited in renowned exhibitions in New York, Tokyo, Nagasaki, Barcelona, Vienna, Paris and Moscow, among others.
Fondation Beyeler Fondation Beyeler is a museum of modern and contemporary art, open 365 days a year. It is considered one of the best in the world. With exhibitions of renowned artists of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, in particular, it has gained international recognition and become established as the most visited art museum in Switzerland. Its art collection comprises 400 works from more than 70 artists, including Monet, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Klee, Giacometti, Warhol , Bourgeois, Richter, Baselitz und Tillmans. The museum in Riehen/Basel has attracted more than 7 million visitors from around the world since its opening in 1997. www.fondationbeyeler.ch
The exhibition: The Young PICASSO – Blue and Rose Periods In its most prestigious exhibition to date, the Fondation Beyeler has focused on the early paintings and sculptures by Pablo Picasso, from the Blue and Rose periods from 1901 to 1906. It is the first time that the masterpieces of this important phase – many of them milestones on Picasso's journey towards becoming the most famous artist of the 20th century – have been exhibited together in this number and quality anywhere in Europe. The paintings of this creative period are among the most beautiful and emotive in modern art. Considered to be some of the most valuable works of art in the world, they are unlikely to be exhibited in this abundance in one place again. Picasso's early masterpieces can still be admired in the exhibition “The Young PICASSO - Blue and Rose Periods” at Fondation Beyeler until 26 May 2019.
Picture: Pablo Picasso, Buste de femme au chapeau (Dora), 1939, oil on canvas, 55.0×46.5 cm, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Beyeler Collection, © Succession Picasso / 2019, ProLitteris, Zurich
Press images: are available at www.fondationbeyeler.ch/en/media/press-images
FONDATION BEYELER
#myprivatepicasso
Pablo Picasso Buste de femme au chapeau (Dora), 1939 Öl auf Leinwand, 55,0 x 46,5 cm Fondation Beyeler, Riehen / Basel, Sammlung Beyeler © Succession Picasso / 2019, ProLitteris, Zürich Foto: Peter Schibli
Pressebilder: www.fondationbeyeler.ch/pressebilder Das Bildmaterial darf nur zu Pressezwecken im Rahmen der aktuellen Berichterstattung verwendet werden. Die Reproduktion ist nur im Zusammenhang mit der laufenden Ausstellung und während deren Dauer erlaubt. Jede weitergehende Verwendung – in analoger und in digitaler Form – bedarf einer Genehmigung durch die Rechtsinhaber. Ausgenommen davon ist der rein private Gebrauch. Bitte verwenden Sie die Bildlegenden und die dazugehörenden Copyrights. Mit freundlicher Bitte um Zusendung eines Belegexemplars.
Media release
The Young PICASSO – Blue and Rose Periods February 3 – May 26, 2019
“I was a painter and became Picasso.” Pablo Picasso
This exhibition, the most ambitious ever staged by the Fondation Beyeler, is devoted to the paintings and sculptures of the young Pablo Picasso from the so-called Blue and Rose periods, between 1901 and 1906. For the first time in Europe, the masterpieces of these crucial years, most of them a milestone on Picasso’s path to preeminence as the twentieth century’s most famous artist, are presented together, in a concentration and quality that are unparalleled. Picasso’s pictures from this phase of creative ferment are some of the finest and most emotionally compelling examples of modern painting, and are counted among the most valuable and sought-after works in the entire history of art. It is unlikely that they will be seen again in such a selection in a single place.
At the age of just twenty, the rising genius Picasso (1881–1973) embarked on a quest for new themes and forms of expression, which he immediately refined to a pitch of perfection. One artistic revolution followed another, in a rapid succession of changing styles and visual worlds. The focus of the exhibition is on the Blue and Rose periods, and thus on the six years in the life of the young Picasso that can be considered central to his entire oeuvre, paving the way for the epochal emergence of Cubism, which developed from Picasso’s previous work, in 1907. Here, the exhibition converges with the Fondation Beyeler’s permanent collection, whose earliest picture by Picasso is a study, dating from this pivotal year, for the Demoiselles d’Avignon.
In the chronologically structured exhibition, Picasso’s early painting career is explored through examples of his treatment of human subjects. Journeying back and forth between Paris and Barcelona, he addressed the human figure in a series of different approaches. In the phase dominated by the color blue, from 1901, he observed the material deprivation and the psychological suffering of people on the margins of society, before turning – in 1905, when he had settled in Paris – to the themes of the Rose period, conferring the dignity of art on the hopes and yearnings of circus performers: jugglers, acrobats and harlequins. In his search for a new artistic authenticity, Picasso stayed for several weeks in mid-1906 in the village of Gósol, in the Spanish Pyrenees, and created a profusion of paintings and sculptures uniting classical and archaic ideals of the body. Finally, the increasing deformation and fragmentation of the figure, apparent in the “primitivist” pictures, especially of the female nude, which were painted subsequently in Paris, heralds the emergence of the new pictorial language of Cubism.
The poignant and magical works of the Blue and Rose periods, painted in Spain and France, have a universal appeal and validity. Existential themes – life, love, sexuality, fate and death – find embodiment in the delicate beauty of young female and male figures, and in depictions of children and of old people scarred by life, whose emotions comprise happiness and joy, but also loneliness and melancholy.
The comprehensive exhibition includes around seventy-five paintings and sculptures rarely loaned by renowned museums in Europe, the USA, Canada, Russia, China and Japan, such as the Musée national Picasso, Paris; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Tate Gallery, London; the National Gallery, Washington, D. C.; the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; the National Museum of Art, Osaka; the Centre Pompidou and the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris; the Museu Picasso, Barcelona; the Centro de
Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. These masterpieces are supplemented by further outstanding works from private collections, some of which will be presented in public for the first time in many decades.
In terms of organizational effort and cost, this is the highest-caliber exhibition project in the history of the Fondation Beyeler. Years of preparation have been devoted to the presentation, which is certain to be one of Europe’s cultural highlights in 2019. The works on display are all major attractions in the museums from which they have been assembled. The Exhibition is being organised by the Fondation Beyeler in collaboration with the Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie, Paris, and the Musée National Picasso-Paris, where it will be shown in a modified form before traveling to Basel. The exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler is curated by Dr. Raphaël Bouvier, Curator at the Foundation.
Information on opening hours, ticket prices, guided tours and special events are available at fondationbeyeler.ch.
The exhibition “The Young PICASSO – Blue and Rose Periods” is generously supported by: Beyeler-Stiftung Hansjörg Wyss, Wyss Foundation Main partner Swisscom Partners and donors BNP Paribas Swiss Foundation Federal Office of Culture FOC Simone & Peter Forcart-Staehelin Eckhart & Marie-Jenny Koch-Burckhardt L. + Th. La Roche-Stiftung Dr. Christoph M. Müller & Sibylla M. Müller Novartis Stavros Niarchos Foundation Freundeskreis der Fondation Beyeler as well as further patrons who prefer to remain anonymous Media partner SonntagsBlick Süddeutsche Zeitung
Instagram: #BeyelerPicasso Facebook: @FondationBeyeler Twitter: @Fond_Beyeler Youtube: @FondationBeyeler
Press images: are available at www.fondationbeyeler.ch/en/media/press-images
Further information: Silke Kellner-Mergenthaler Head of Communications Tel. + 41 (0)61 645 97 21, [email protected], www.fondationbeyeler.ch Fondation Beyeler, Beyeler Museum AG, Baselstrasse 77, CH-4125 Riehen
Fondation Beyeler opening hours: 10 am to 6 pm daily, Wednesday 10 am to 8 pm
Media release
Picasso Panorama January 13 – May 5, 2019
The exhibition “Picasso Panorama” leads into the coming months, which the Fondation Beyeler will devote to Pablo Picasso, culminating in the major exhibition “The Young PICASSO – Blue and Rose Periods” on view from February 3 to May 26, 2019. Up to the end of May, the Fondation Beyeler will thus turn into a museum dedicated entirely to the works of Pablo Picasso.
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), one of the most important artists of all time, exerted unparalleled influence on 20th-century modern art. The Fondation Beyeler owns more than 30 of his works, one of the largest and finest Picasso collections worldwide. “Picasso Panorama” is conceived as a tribute to the museum’s founders Ernst and Hildy Beyeler, for whom Picasso embodied the ideal artist. Over the decades, they sold more than 1000 of his works, devoted numerous exhibitions to him in their gallery, and their relationship evolved into friendship.
The paintings, works on paper and sculptures they collected span the period from early Cubism to the late works. In this display of the collection, they are complemented by permanent loans among others from the Anthax Collection Marx and the Rudolf Staechelin Collection. Before the viewer’s eye, the full panorama of visual worlds created by Picasso between 1907 and 1972 thus unfolds in 40 works. Picasso’s key periods and themes are considered in depth across eight rooms: Cubism and Classicism, Surrealist tendencies, his models Marie-Thérèse Walter and Dora Maar, the war years, artistic predecessors who inspired him, drawings and prints, the late works and the last years.
The show offers an extension to the major exhibition “The Young PICASSO – Blue and Rose Periods”, on view from February 3 to May 26, 2019, thereby temporarily turning the Fondation Beyeler into a museum dedicated entirely to the works of Pablo Picasso. The collection display was curated by Dr Raphaël Bouvier.
Drawing with Picasso: Thursdays 9.00am to 10.00am On Thursdays, the museum opens its doors to creative early risers at 9.00am. Led by a drawing expert during one hour, participants study Picasso’s masterpieces in the collection display and can try interesting methods and techniques right in front of the original works.
Information on opening hours, ticket prices, guided tours and special events is available at fondationbeyeler.ch.