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Home , Fernande Olivier, Jacqueline Roque, Novecento Italiano, Paloma Picasso, The Actor (painting), The Three Dancers

PLAY GUIDE About ATC . 1 Introduction to the Play. 2 Meet the Characters. 2 Meet the Playwright. 4 Behind the Scenes: An Interview with Herbert Siguenza . 5 : The Artist. 7 Picasso’s Who’s Who . 10 Picasso’s Women. 11 A World View . 13 Glossary . 15 Discussion Questions and Activities. 16

A Weekend with Play Guide written and compiled by Katherine Monberg, ATC Literary Associate, with assistance from April Jackson, Education Manager; Luke Young, Education Associate; Natasha Smith, Artistic and Playwriting Intern; Kalan Benbow and Skye Westberg, Literary Interns.

SUPPORT FOR ATC’S EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY PROGRAMMING HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY:

APS Rosemont Copper Arizona Commission on the Arts Stonewall Foundation Bank of America Foundation Target Blue Cross Blue Shield Arizona The Boeing Company City Of Glendale The Donald Pitt Family Foundation Community Foundation for Southern Arizona The Johnson Family Foundation, Inc. Cox Charities The Lovell Foundation Downtown Tucson Partnership The Marshall Foundation Enterprise Holdings Foundation The Maurice and Meta Gross Foundation Ford Motor Company Fund The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Foundation The Stocker Foundation JPMorgan Chase The William L. and Ruth T. Pendleton Memorial Fund John and Helen Murphy Foundation Tucson Medical Center National Endowment for the Arts Tucson Pima Arts Council Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture Wells Fargo PICOR Charitable Foundation ABOUT ATC

Arizona Theatre Company is a professional, not-for-profit theatre company. This means all of our artists, administrators and production staff are paid professionals, and the income we receive from ticket sales and contributions goes right back into our budget to create our work, rather than to any particular person as a profit. Each season, ATC employs hundreds of actors, directors and designers from all over the country to create the work you see on stage. In addition, ATC currently employs about 100 staff members in our production shops and administrative offices in Tucson and Phoenix during our season. Among these people are carpenters, painters, marketing professionals, fundraisers, stage directors, sound and light board operators, tailors, costume designers, box office agents, stage crew – the list is endless – representing an amazing range of talents and skills. We are also supported by a Board of Trustees, a group of business and community leaders who volunteer their time and expertise to assist the theatre in financial and legal matters, advise in marketing and fundraising, and help represent the theatre in our community. Roughly 150,000 people attend our shows every year, and several thousand of those people support us with charitable contributions in addition to purchasing their tickets. Businesses large and small, private foundations and the city and state governments also support our work financially. All of this is in support of our vision and mission:

OUR VISION IS TO TOUCH LIVES THROUGH THE POWER OF THEATRE. Our mission is to create professional theatre that continually strives to reach new levels of artistic excellence and that resonates locally, in the state of Arizona and throughout the nation. In order to fulfill our mission, the theatre produces a broad repertoire ranging from classics to new works, engages artists of the highest caliber, and is committed to assuring access to the broadest spectrum of citizens.

The Temple of Music and Art, the home of ATC shows in downtown Tucson. The Herberger Theater Center, ATC’s performance venue in downtown Phoenix.

1 INTRODUCTION TO THE PLAY

A Weekend with Pablo Picasso By Herbert Siguenza Based on the writings of Pablo Picasso Directed by Todd Salovey The work of Pablo Picasso forever changed the way that the world looks at art. This one-man show, written by and starring the astonishing actor and artist Herbert Siguenza, will forever change the way that you think about Picasso. In a performance that explodes with color, Picasso’s most intimate thoughts rip through the air with each thundering brushstroke as Siguenza creates six new masterpieces live on stage in this Arizona premiere.

Herbert Siguenza in Arizona Theatre Company’s production of “Action is the foundation to all success. Do not try, DO! Do not seek, FIND!” A Weekend with Pablo Picasso. Photo by Darren Scott. – Picasso, A Weekend with Pablo Picasso

MEET THE CHARACTERS

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Born on October 25, 1881, in Málaga, Spain, Pablo Picasso’s full name, which honors a variety of relatives and saints, is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso. Picasso’s mother was Doña Maria Picasso y Lopez and his father was Don José Ruiz Blasco, a painter and art teacher. A serious and prematurely world-weary child, the young Picasso possessed a pair of piercing, watchful black eyes that seemed to mark him destined for greatness. “When I was a child, my mother said to me, ‘If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk you’ll end up as the pope,’” he later recalled. “Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.” Pablo Picasso. Though he was a relatively poor student, Picasso displayed a prodigious talent for drawing at a very young age. According to legend, his first words were “piz, piz,” his childish attempt at saying “lápiz,” the Spanish word for pencil. Picasso’s father began teaching him to draw and paint when he was a child, and by the time he was 13 years old, his skill level had surpassed his father’s. Soon, Picasso lost all desire to do any schoolwork, choosing to spend the school days doodling in his notebook instead. “For being a bad student, I was banished to the ‘calaboose,’ a bare cell with whitewashed walls and a bench to sit on,” he later remembered. “I liked it there, because I took along a sketch pad and drew incessantly ... I could have stayed there forever, drawing without stopping.” In 1895, when Picasso was 14 years old, he moved with his family to Barcelona, Spain, where he applied to the city’s prestigious School of Fine Arts. Although the school typically only accepted students several years his senior, Picasso’s Picasso in his studio, La Californie, in Cannes, France. entrance exam was so extraordinary that he was granted an exception and admitted. Nevertheless, Picasso chafed at the School of Fine Arts’ strict rules and formalities, and began skipping class so that he could roam the streets of Barcelona, sketching the city scenes he observed.

2 In 1897, a 16-year-old Picasso moved to Madrid to attend the Royal Academy of San Fernando. However, he again became frustrated with his school’s singular focus on classical subjects and techniques. During this time, he wrote to a friend: “They just go on and on about the same old stuff: Velázquez for painting, Michelangelo for sculpture.” Once again, Picasso began skipping class to wander the city and paint what he observed: gypsies, beggars and prostitutes, among other things. In 1899, Picasso moved back to Barcelona and fell in with a crowd of artists and intellectuals who made their headquarters at a café called El Quatre Gats (“The Four Cats”). Inspired by the anarchists and radicals he met there,

Pablo Picasso (in the beret) and scene painters sitting on the front Picasso made his decisive break from the classical methods in which he cloth for the ballet , staged by ’s Ballets had been trained, and began what would become a lifelong process of Russes at the Théâtre du Châtelet, , 1917. Photo by Lachmann. experimentation and innovation. At the turn of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso moved to Paris, France – the cultural center of European art – to open his own studio. Art critics and historians typically break Picasso’s adult career into distinct periods, the first of which lasted from 1901 to 1904 and is called his “Blue Period,” after the color that dominated nearly all of Picasso’s paintings over these years. Lonely and deeply depressed over the death of his close friend, Carlos Casagemas, he painted scenes of poverty, isolation and anguish, almost exclusively in shades of blue and green. By 1905, Picasso had largely overcome the depression that had previously debilitated him. Not only was he madly in love with a beautiful model, , he was newly prosperous thanks to the generous patronage of art dealer Ambroise Vollard. The artistic manifestation of Picasso’s Francoise Gilot and Pablo Picasso celebrate his 70th birthday. improved spirits was the introduction of warmer colors – including beiges, pinks and reds – in what is known as his “Rose Period.” In 1907, Pablo Picasso produced a painting unlike anything he or anyone else had ever painted before, a work that would profoundly influence the direction of art in the 20th century:Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a chilling depiction of five nude prostitutes, abstracted and distorted with sharp geometric features and stark blotches of blues, greens and grays. Today, Les Demoiselles is considered the precursor and inspiration of , an artistic style pioneered by Picasso and his friend and fellow painter, . The outbreak of ushered in the next great change in Picasso’s art. He grew more somber and, once again, became preoccupied with the depiction of reality. He briefly joined the Russian Ballet in 1917, designing sets for the balletParade by his friend and fellow artist . There Picasso met and fell in love with ballerina , whom he married in 1918 upon his return to Paris. In 1921, Olga gave birth to their first child, Paulo, from which point the couple’s relationship quickly deteriorated. Olga was a member of the nobility, accustomed to an upper-class lifestyle, enabling Picasso to a life as a society husband and prompting his return to more traditional artistic techniques. His works between 1918 and 1927 are categorized as part of his “Classical Period,” a brief return to in a career otherwise dominated by experimentation. In 1927, Picasso began an affair with 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter, and became caught up in a new philosophical and cultural movement known as , the artistic manifestation of which was a product of his own cubism. He carried on the affair with Marie-Thérèse in secret until Olga discovered Marie-Thérèse’s pregnancy; Marie-Thérèse gave birth to Maya, Picasso’s second child, in September of 1935. Olga moved to the South of France with Paulo and filed for divorce; French law required the equitable division of property upon divorce, which Picasso refused, so the two remained estranged but legally married until Olga’s death from cancer in 1955.

3 In 1936, Picasso met and fell in love with photographer and painter , who became the rival of his previous mistress, Marie-Thérèse; Marie-Thérèse eventually moved to Paris with their daughter Maya in 1940. By 1943, Picasso’s affections had transferred to young painter, Francoise Gilot, with whom he would live for the next ten years and have two children: Claude in 1947 and Paloma in 1949. In the aftermath of World War II, Picasso became more overtly political. He joined the Communist Party and was twice honored with the International Lenin Peace Prize, first in 1950 and again in 1961. By this point in his life, he

Picasso with his children, Claude and Paloma. was also an international celebrity, the world’s most famous living artist. While paparazzi chronicled his every move, however, few paid attention to his art during this time. In 1953, Picasso met Roque, whom he would marry in 1961, after the death of his first wife, Olga. In contrast to the dazzling complexity of Synthetic Cubism, Picasso’s later paintings display simple, childlike imagery and crude technique. Touching on the artistic validity of these later works, Picasso once remarked upon passing a group of school kids in his old age, “When I was as old as these children, I could draw like Raphael, but it took me a lifetime to learn to draw like them.” Picasso created the epitome of his later work, Self Portrait Facing Death, using pencil and crayon, a year before his death. The autobiographical subject, drawn with crude technique, appears as something between a human and an ape, with a green face and pink hair. Yet the expression in his eyes, capturing a lifetime of wisdom, fear and uncertainty, is the unmistakable work of a Picasso and some of his work in Cannes, 1955. master at the height of his powers. Pablo Picasso continued to create art and maintain an ambitious schedule in his later years, superstitiously believing that work would keep him alive. He died on April 8, 1973, at the age of 91, in Mougins, France. His legacy, however, has long endured. Inarguably one of the most celebrated and influential painters of the 20th century, Picasso continues to garner reverence for his technical mastery, visionary creativity and profound empathy, and, together, these qualities have distinguished him as a revolutionary artist. Picasso also remains renowned for endlessly reinventing himself, switching between styles so radically different that his life’s work seems to be the product of five or six great artists rather than just one. In regard to his penchant for style diversity, Picasso insisted that his varied work was not indicative of radical shifts throughout his career, but, rather, of his dedication to objectively evaluating for each piece the form and technique best suited to achieve his desired effect. “Whenever I wanted to say something, I said it the way I believed I should,” he explained. “Different themes inevitably require different methods of expression. This does not imply either evolution or progress; it is a matter of following the idea one wants to express and the way in which one wants to express it.”

Biography adapted from http://www.biography.com/people/pablo-picasso-9440021#video-gallery.

4 MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT

Herbert Siguenza (Pablo Picasso) is a founding member of the performance group Culture Clash. Along with Richard Montoya and Ric Salinas, Culture Clash is the most-produced Latino theatre troupe in the United States. Founded in San Francisco in 1984, Culture Clash has performed on the stages of America’s top regional theatres including the Mark Taper Forum, The Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, Alley Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, South Coast Repertory, La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego Repertory Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Huntington Theatre Company and countless universities and colleges. Mr. Siguenza has co-written and/or performed in the following Culture Clash plays: American Night (commissioned by Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Palestine New Mexico, Water and Power, Chavez Ravine (all three commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum); Peace (commissioned by Getty Villa); Zorro Herbert Siguenza, creator in Hell! (commissioned by Berkeley Repertory Theatre); The Birds (commissioned by Berkeley Repertory and performer of A Weekend with Pablo Picasso. Photo by Theatre and South Coast Repertory); Bordertown (commissioned by San Diego Repertory Theatre); Darren Scott. Radio Mambo, Nuyorican Stories, Anthems, S.O.S., A Bowl of Beings, The Mission and others. As a solo writer and performer Mr. Siguenza has produced Cantinflas!and A Weekend with Pablo Picasso, currently on national tour. His latest plays Steal Heaven and El Henry (Best New Play, San Diego Critics Circle Award 2014) have been produced at San Diego Repertory Theatre and La Jolla Playhouse. Mr. Siguenza is also an accomplished visual artist and has exhibited both nationally and internationally. He has a B.F.A. in printmaking from the California College of Arts, Oakland, California. TV and Film credits: Ben Ten Alien Swarm for Cartoon Network and Larry Crowne, a feature film directed by Tom Hanks.

BEHIND THE SCENES: AN INTERVIEW WITH HERBERT SIGUENZA

INTERVIEW WITH THE PLAYWRIGHT Mark Bly, Resident Dramaturg of the Alley Theatre, Interviews Herbert Siguenza Mark Bly: What inspired you to write A Weekend with Pablo Picasso? Herbert Siguenza: I was born with the mysterious gift of being able to draw. Since I was a young boy, I would press crayons against paper and create imaginary worlds and characters. In fact, when I was in second grade, my teacher, Mrs. Sharp, would pull me out of the reading circle and have me draw on giant rolls of butcher paper instead. She kept everything I drew. Later that semester, we went on a field trip to downtown San Francisco to visit Herbert Siguenza in Arizona Theatre Company’s production of City Hall and the Board of Education building. To my great surprise, there was A Weekend with Pablo Picasso. Photo by Darren Scott. an exhibit of all my work hanging in the halls! My fellow students were very impressed, and I was immensely proud as well. That first exhibit made it clear to me that I would grow up to become an artist. That same year, my mother took me to the dentist. While we waited in the reception area, I picked up a photo book by Douglas Duncan called The Private Life of Picasso. The beautiful black and white photos showed a shirtless old man who painted and played like a child. He also had doves, several dogs and a goat. I turned and said to my mom, “When I grow up I want to be that old man.” “That’s Pablo Picasso,” she said. “Es loco” [“You’re crazy”]. My dear mother did not discourage me; I knew better. The old man Columbus was not crazy but rather unconventional and free, which inspired me profoundly to later live Herbert Siguenza in Arizona Theatre Company’s production of A Weekend with Pablo Picasso. Photo by Darren Scott. my own life in that manner. I eventually went to the California College of Arts

5 in Oakland were I got a B.F.A. in printmaking and taught for two years. I also worked for ten years at La Raza Silkscreen Center producing posters for cultural and political events. All these experiences have contributed to my personal and artistic growth. I see this play as a result of everything I have ever learned in regard to the visual and theatrical arts. It is a perfect and natural marriage for me. A play that I was born to perform starting now. It is a culmination of everything I’ve known since I was a curious child. And yes, I still don’t read very well. Thank you, Mrs. Sharp! MB: Would you talk about your process as an actor and playwright in creating the play? Where does the painter-artist Herbert Siguenza figure into this stage equation? HS: I don’t have a formal education in theatre but rather, as I said, a degree in art. To a certain extent that has been very liberating, because I never overthink or analyze what I do. I simply act on a real instinctive level, free from academic philosophies. I just do. My character of Picasso is not an imitation of Picasso because that would be false or impossible. My character of Picasso is me as a rich, old man who paints and lives in southern France. It’s simple and direct. After 30 years of performing comedy and drama on stage, I feel ready to take on the challenge of portraying an icon. I could never have portrayed him ten

Herbert Siguenza in Arizona Theatre Company’s production of years ago, you know? I wasn’t ready to take on such a giant character. He is A Weekend with Pablo Picasso. Photo by Darren Scott. [Shakespeare’s] Falstaff or Big Papa fromCat on a Hot Tin Roof. Now on the script, I took all the quotes Picasso said during his lifetime and constructed an imaginary weekend in 1957 in his studio, La Californie. I wanted to recreate the sights and sounds of the pictures I saw in Duncan’s wonderful photographs. My only goal as a playwright was for the audience to experience and feel like they are spending an intimate weekend with a master, a genius but also a Spanish man in exile. Picasso said that viewing art is a kind of voyeurism. I think viewing theatre is even more voyeuristic, because we are seeing people in their most private moments. In my play I want no separation between performer and audience. The audience is a participant and the reason for the play. There are only a few moments where the audience “is not there” and watches Picasso at his most private and most vulnerable. As a painter I am also vulnerable, I paint and create in front of the audience. No safety net, no gimmicks – just magic and truth in action. Like my acting, I just do it without thinking. I think Picasso would be proud of me. MB: Picasso’s relationship with 20th-century political movements was complex and you explore that struggle in your play. Can you characterize that epic “tug and pull” between art and politics that manifested itself in Picasso’s work? HS: Picasso’s long-time friend Jaime Sabartés said that, “Picasso is the most apolitical person I know.” I think to a certain degree it was true. Even though Picasso was a member of the French Communist Party and contributed to Herbert Siguenza in Arizona Theatre Company’s production of many leftist causes, he wasn’t politically or physically involved. He was sort of A Weekend with Pablo Picasso. Photo by Darren Scott. a communist from afar. As long as he could paint what he wanted in freedom, he was content being in the party for idealistic reasons.

6 He was an artist first and foremost and an activist second. I have struggled with that “tug and pull” in my own life as a Chicano/Latino actor-activist. At one point you have to decide what you were meant to do in this life, you know? Are you an artist or a politician? Picasso remained free and true to his style, he never succumbed to the pressures of the party to paint in a social realist manner. I believe theatre that is didactic and pounds you over the head is the worst kind of theatre and does not accomplish what it wants to do in the first place: make people think. If art does the thinking for you, what’s the use? That’s why is so amazingly powerful and eternal. It’s politically charged but aesthetically transcendental. During the Cold War, Picasso did not fan the fire of nuclear destruction but rather was a global peace campaigner and contributed art and financial donations to many peace organizations and social causes. In fact, the iconography of the peace movement – the doves, flowers, children that are used today – was first created by Picasso in the late ’50s. Picasso was a humanist who just happened to be a communist. We are lucky because Guernica, the peace , the hands holding flowers were created as if a child had drawn them, and that is why it has lasted so long because it connects with our inner child full of joy, happiness and hope.

This interview originally appeared in the Alley Theatre’s program for A Weekend with Pablo Picasso.

THE ARTIST

Pablo Picasso is one of the best known and most widely praised artists of the 20th century, but beyond creating pieces of art that resonated with large audiences and constantly pushing the boundaries of what “art” is, Picasso pushed other artists to discover new forms, mediums, and styles of creation that would forever change the way artists and audiences connected to works of art. Picasso’s unyielding dedication to discovering the endless possibilities of artistic expression made him the one of the most influential figures in the art world, then and now.

THE BLUE AND ROSE PERIODS

“I began to paint in blue, when I realized that Casagemas had died.” – Pablo Picasso In 1895 Picasso attended La Lonja School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, Spain, and was later accepted to The Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid where he was trained primarily in the classical , important artist to the style – which focused on the ideals of Greek and Roman antiquity like verisimilitude and symbolist movement, 1891. perspective – but after encountering Spanish and other experimental styles, he abandoned for some time, in order to explore other styles. In the early years of Picasso’s career he was highly influenced by artists like Paul Gauguin and the style of . Symbolism was a reaction against the cold objective nature of naturalism and realism that began in France in the 1850s; while naturalism and realism sought to portray the world as it is, symbolism sought to move past the objective truth and capture a subjective emotional or spiritual meaning without any specific technical or style tenets. This can be seen extensively in Picasso’s Blue Period, which began around 1901 after a close friend of Picasso’s, Carlos Casagemas, committed suicide. In Picasso’s Blue Period a theme of somber, cool colors appears and depictions of social outcasts and the downtrodden dominate his paintings. Picasso remained in his Blue Period until around 1904 when he met Fernande Olivier, a French model who remained his mistress for almost a decade. Picasso then transi- tioned into his Rose Period; he and close friend Laurence Olivier frequented the Circus Médrano in Paris, whose warm vibrant colors and exaggerated performers started to creep into his Fernande Olivier, French model and lover works and overcome the cool tones and downturned angles of the Blue Period, first revealing of Picasso. a sense of playfulness that would continue throughout his career.

7 AFRICAN INFLUENCES AND CUBISM

“Cubism is no different from any other school of painting. The same principles and the same elements are common to all. The fact that for a long time cubism has not been understood and that even today there are people who cannot see anything in it, means nothing.” – Pablo Picasso With the expansion of France into Sub-Saharan Africa in the late 19th century arose a deep, though arguably misplaced, interest in African art across Europe. Several pieces of African art and sculpture were placed on display in the Louvre and by chance Picasso was sold a set of Iberian sculptures that were stolen from the Louvre – and later returned – Herbert Siguenza in Arizona Theatre Company’s by Géry Piéret. Picasso seems to have been deeply influenced by the elongated and production of A Weekend with Pablo Picasso. Photo by Darren Scott. geometrical forms of the Iberian sculptures as well as an African art exhibit he saw in France at the ethnographic museum at Palais de Trocadéro, and shortly afterward created one of his most famous paintings, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). Demoiselles depicts five nude women: one of the women exhibits a quasi-Egyptian style, completely in profile, that is reminiscent of the Pharaohs, two are considerably average, and two appear to be largely derivative of the Iberian sculptures and the African masks he saw – though Picasso vehemently denied any African inspiration. Demoiselles, whose subjects are largely segmented and one-dimensional, also marks Picasso’s first foray into cubism, a style he helped pioneer that was revolutionary in its rejection of single point perspective and its focus on geometricity. Demoiselles is an example of early Analytical Cubism, in which the subject is fragmented into several geometrical shapes – mainly cubes, spheres, and cones – that intermix with the back- ground, nearly merging into one another. Analytical Cubism, which became prominent in Herbert Siguenza in Arizona Theatre Company’s 1909, embraces muted palettes composed of mostly earth tones, the colors tending to production of A Weekend with Pablo Picasso. Photo by Darren Scott. follow naturally into one another while maintaining only a slight edge to each individual shape. Analytical Cubism also rejected the convention of single perspective painting by depicting a subject from different angles and in different light simultaneously on a single plane, causing the different angles to intersect and overlap. In 1909, Picasso created the first – the head of his lover Fernande Olivier – in which he adjusted the relationship of the head and the neck and placed them both on a diagonal plane. Once Picasso felt that the limitations of Analytical Cubism had been fully explored, he ventured into the creation of Synthetic Cubism, which reclaimed bright, bold colors and explored the use of other materials such as bits of paper and rope as ways to create abstraction and texture. Synthetic Cubism is sometimes referred to as Collage Cubism, because it often starts with material(s) pasted onto a canvas which are then painted on and around to create a multi-textural collage. In this way Synthetic Cubism creates a whole out of many pieces, in opposition to the tenets of earlier Analytical Cubism which works to break a whole into many pieces. Synthetic Cubism also diverges from Analytical Cubism in that it removes the need for intellectual importance and instead allows the work to achieve a playful, whimsical nature that Synthetic Cubists felt was more “real,” because it did in fact contain bits of real life (e.g. newspaper, rope, wrappers). It was at this time that Picasso began working with constructed sculpture, in which he would use found objects to assemble a sculpture rather than molding the sculpture from a single material; this work is now regarded as the foundation of technique and creation.

8 CLASSICISM

“The art of the Greeks, of the Egyptians, of the great painters who lived in other times, is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive today than it ever was.” – Pablo Picasso While Synthetic Cubism displayed a revival of the playfulness seen in Picasso’s Rose Period, the onset of World War I seems to have put on strain on his sense of whimsy, and his paintings became steadily more realistic and somber. In 1917, Picasso traveled to Rome with Jean Cocteau to create decor for the ballet Parade; while there he visited the ruins of Pompeii and saw for the first time the true splendor that antiquity had to offer. It was also at this time that Picasso was introduced to Olga Khokhlova, whom he married in 1918, and began living the life of an upper-class husband. It appears that the combination of the war, his experiences in , and his newfound social status brought Picasso back around to more “respectable” forms of art, and he returned to the classical style of his early artistic education. Picasso’s Portrait of Olga in an Armchair (1918) is a far cry from the fragmentation and single-point perspective of cubism, and notably lacking in abstract elements. This retreat into “safe” classicism gained Picasso profound fame in the mid-1920s, but it made him feel unoriginal as an artist and undeserving of the praise. As a result of this, Picasso strained against classicism and his wife Olga; he moved back to experimenting with new forms and in 1927 began an affair with 17-year-old, Marie-Thérèse Walter.

SURREALISM

“I keep doing my best not to lose sight of nature. I want to aim at similarity, a profound similarity which is more real than reality, thus becoming surrealist.” – Pablo Picasso Surrealism was most popular during the time between the two world wars, an artistic recognition that intense trauma could completely overcome logic and reason, and so surrealists sought to unlock the subconscious mind and circumvent rationality. Surrealism literally means “above realism,” and thus seeks to capture something more true than the limitations of realism can access. Surrealism is often described as a depiction of the psychology and emotion of or about a subject, and has very few boundaries when it comes to technique. Some of Picasso’s most popular surrealist works, starting around 1927, are of his mistress Marie-Thérèse, dramatically emphasizing the soft curves of her body in joyful lavenders and blues, while making her blond hair a prominent element; from this representation the viewer can see the way Picasso thinks and feels about Marie-Thérèse rather than what she actually looks like. However, it wasn’t until the next decade that Picasso would create what is generally considered to be his most inspired surrealist work in Guernica (1937). Picasso’s Guernica is often regarded as his most important painting, representative of his reaction to German and Italian warplanes dropping bombs in Northern Spain during the Spanish Civil War. With its black and white color palette and fragmented chaos, Guernica combines elements of both Analytical Cubism and Synthetic Cubism in a surrealist style, making it a synthesis of several of Picasso’s most important innovations in the world of art. Pablo Picasso lived through nearly a century of world history and artistic styles, always adapting and always in pursuit of his own creativity. As a result of this endless pursuit, Picasso co-founded cubism alongside Georges Braque, pioneered constructed sculpture, co-founded the art of collage, and solidly established himself as one of the most famous and inspiring artists of the 20th century. Picasso’s paintings are, to this day, some of the most sought after works ever created, some selling for over $100 million; according to the Art Loss Register, more of his paintings have been stolen than any other artist, totaling approximately 550 stolen pieces. His unwillingness to submit to prescribed notions of what art should be made him one of the rare artists to gain immense acclaim during his lifetime, and continuing after his death in 1973.

9 PICASSO’S WHO’S WHO

Andre Breton, the founder Jean Cocteau, French Gary Cooper, American Gustave Courbet, leader Béla Czóbel, member of Salvador Dalí, Spanish of surrealism artist, designer and writer, fi l m a c t o r of the 19th-century realist “The Eight ” surrealist painter with his 1923 movement, 1860s Portrait pet ocelot, Babou, 1960s by Étienne Carjat

Eugène Delacrois, French , a close friend Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, , French Portrait of Michaelangelo, , founder romantic artist of Picasso one of the top art dealers artist, 1933 Photo by by Daniele da Volterra, of French of the 20th century Carl Van Vechten 1565 Photo by Nadar

Jackson Pollock, Raphael, part of the Jaime Sabartés, close , American Luc de Clapiers, marquis Diego Velázquez, self American abstract traditional trinity of great friend and secretary of writer Portrait by Carl Van de Vauvenargues portrait, 1640 expressionist painter Renaissance masters Pablo Picasso Vechten, 1934 alongside Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci

André Breton (1896-1966): French writer/poet and founder of surrealism He wrote the fi rst Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 Jean Cocteau (1889-1963): French writer, designer, playwright, artist and fi lmmaker best known for his novelLes Enfants Terribles (1929) and the fi lmsBlood of a Poet (1930), Les Parents Terribles (1948), Beauty and the Beast (1946) and Orpheus (1949) He wrote the scenario for the ballet Parade (1917), for which Picasso designed the sets Gary Cooper (1901-1961): American fi lm actor who won two Academy Awards for Best Actor inSergeant York and High Noon. He eventually appeared in more than 100 fi lms, including westerns, crime stories, comedy and drama Gustave Courbet (1819-1877): French painter and leader of the 19th-century realist movement in French painting His rejection of academic convention and paved the way for later artists to innovate from classical form and technique, particularly infl uential in the development of impressionism and cubism Béla Czóbel (1883-1976): Hungarian painter and member of “The Eight,” an avant-garde movement known for introducing post-impressionist forms into Hungary, including , cubism, and Salvador Dalí (1904-1989): Spanish surrealist painter who revered Picasso as his “artistic father,” but later challenged him saying he was a “destroyer” of art, concerned with ugliness, while Dalí embraced beauty; the two were noted as having a rather strained relationship

10 Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863): French romantic artist whose painting style greatly influenced the later impressionists. Delacroix’s 1834 harem scene The Women of Alger (In Their Apartment) inspired Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger series of 15 paintings. Picasso later married Delacroix’s model, , in 1961. Max Jacob (1876-1944): French artist and critic and one of Picasso’s first friends in Paris, the two young artists shared an apartment on the Boulevard Voltaire. Jewish by birth, Jacob converted to Catholicism in 1909, but was nonetheless arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 and died in Drancy internment camp. Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1884-1979): One of the premier French art dealers of the 20th century whose gallery opened in Paris in 1907 and who championed Picasso and other cubist artists. Picasso said, “What would have become of us if Kahnweiler hadn’t had a business sense?” Henri Matisse (1869-1954): French artist, painter, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor, known particularly for his use of color and his fluid, original draughtsmanship (or drawing). Along with Pablo Picasso and , Matisse is regarded as one of the revolutionary developers of the plastic arts in the early 20th century, which had lasting significance on painting and sculpture. Michaelangelo (1475-1564): Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet and engineer of the , widely considered to be one of the greatest artists of all time, with an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Claude Monet (1840-1926): The founder of French Impressionist painting, a style which rose to prominence in the 1870s and 1880s and utilizes small, thin, visible brush strokes, open composition, an emphasis on the accurate depiction of light, ordinary subjects, unusual visual angles, and the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience. Jackson Pollock (1912-1956): American painter influential to the abstract expressionist movement, known for his unique style of drip painting. During his lifetime he was regarded as reclusive and volatile, and was killed in 1956 in a single-car alcohol- related accident while driving. Raphael (1483-1520): Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance whose work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur; considered part of the traditional trinity of great Renaissance masters alongside Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Jaime Sabartés (1881-1968): Spanish artist, writer, and close friend of Picasso who became Picasso’s secretary in 1939. Gertrude Stein (1874-1946): American writer, poet, and art collector whose prestigious salon in Paris in the early 20th century brought together many artists, including Picasso, F. Scott Fitzgerald, , Max Jacob, , Sinclair Lewis, Henri Matisse and . Vauvenargues (1715-1747): Reference to Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues, a minor French moralist and writer, best known for his friendship with Voltaire and a collection of essays published in 1746 from which derive many popular aphorisms. Diego Velázquez (1599-1660): Spanish painter and leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age and court of King Philip IV. In 1957 Picasso painted 58 variations on Velázquez’s most famous creation, .

Partial content created by Danielle Ward, and originally appeared in San Diego REPertory Theatre’s program for A Weekend with Pablo Picasso.

PICASSO’S WOMEN

“Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” - Pablo Picasso Alongside his fame as a pioneer of artistic style and an artist of immense influence, part of Picasso’s eccentric celebrity persona included his reputation as a consummate womanizer, his transfer of affections made manifest in his art by the frequent portrayal of his wives and mistresses in his work. Notable transitions in his artistic style often include influences or artistic references to the world around him, including dramatic changes in his personal life.

11 Fernande Olivier (1881-1966) was a French artist and model when she met Picasso in 1904 at La Bateau-Lavoir, famous as the residence and meeting place for 20th-century artists, writers, actors and art dealers. By 1905 she was living with Picasso, with whom she would share a relationship for seven years; both were noted for being jealous lovers and their relationship was a dramatic one, which some- times strayed into violence. In 1907, Fernande adopted a 13-year-old girl from a local orphanage, to which the girl was returned after Fernande discovered explicit drawings of Picasso’s featuring the child. Many of Picasso’s cubist works from 1907-1909 were inspired by Fernande, though as he began to gain success, his interest in her waned as a reminder of his more difficult times. The two separated in 1912, leaving Fernande financially unable to maintain the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed Fernande Olivier, French with Picasso. The only one of Picasso’s mistresses to have known him before his fame and fortune, model and lover of Picasso, sometime between 1910 Fernande published a memoir of their relationship in 1930 entitled Picasso et ses amis (Picasso and his and 1917. Friends), published in serial in the Belgian daily Le Soir; only six articles were released before Picasso’s lawyers curtailed the publication. In 1956, Fernande persuaded Picasso to pay her a small pension in exchange for her promise not to publish anything more about their relationship, a promise she kept until her death in 1966.

Eva Gouel (1885-1915) met Picasso in 1912 while he was still living with Fernande Olivier. Although Eva (born Marcelle Humbert) does not appear directly in his paintings, she is referred to in word fragments in some of his cubist works. In early 1915, Eva fell ill with tuberculosis; her death in December of that year plunged Picasso into a deep depression.

Eva Gouel, born Marcelle Humbert, 1910s.

Gabrielle Depeyre (1888-1970) provided solace for Picasso during the sickness and after the death of his lover Eva Gouel, the pair carrying on a secret affair in 1915-1916 that was revealed by art historian John Richardson in 1987. Gabrielle refused what Richardson asserts to have been a proposal of marriage from Picasso, instead marrying artist Herbert Lepinasse in 1917.

Picasso and Gaby Dupeyre, 1915-1916.

Olga Khalokhov (1981-1955) first met Picasso in Paris in 1917, while performing as a ballerina in Parade, for which he had designed the sets. Rather than continuing on with the ballet, which toured to South America, Olga stayed in Barcelona with Picasso before returning with him to Paris. The two were married on July 12, 1918, and she gave birth to their son, Paulo, in 1921. Olga’s wealth and nobility raised Picasso’s profile in society and spurred his return to a more classical style of painting, which started to grate on him as an artist as their marriage deteriorated in parallel. In 1927, Picasso began an affair with 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter, carrying on in secret until Marie-Thérèse’s pregnancy was revealed to Olga by a friend in 1935. Deeply hurt, Olga moved with Paulo to the South of France and immediately

Ballerina Olga Khokhlova, filed for divorce. However, French law designated that upon divorce, a couple’s assets must be divided Picasso’s first wife. equally; Picasso refused to part with half of his significant wealth, so the two remained legally married in their separation until Olga’s death from cancer in 1955.

12 Marie-Thérèse Walter (1909-1977) first met Picasso in Paris in 1927 at the age of 17, while he was still married to Olga Khokhlova, the mother of his then five-year-old. Marie-Thérèse became Picasso’s model and muse, appearing in many of his works as a bright, blonde and sunny presence. Their secret affair came to light in 1935, while Marie-Thérèse was pregnant with their daughter Maya, born in September of that year. Shortly after Maya’s birth, Picasso met and fell in love with surrealist photographer Dora Maar, who became Marie-Thérèse’s rival for his affections. A popular story recounts the two women meeting accidentally in Picasso’s studio while he was painting Guernica; when they demanded that he Picasso with Marie-Thérèse chose between them, he told them to fight it out amongst themselves, at which point the women began Walter, 1930s. to wrestle. In 1940, Marie moved with Maya to Paris, where she continued to be financially supported by Picasso. She committed suicide by hanging herself on October 20, 1977, four years after Picasso’s death. Dora Maar (1907-1997) met Picasso through a mutual friend, the famous poet Paul Éluard, in a restaurant in Paris in 1936, when she was 28 years old and he was 54. Maar was already known as a photographer and less so as a painter and a poet, and she fascinated Picasso with her beauty, daring, and fluent Spanish. A popular story recounts that Picasso first noticed her playing “the knife game” in which one attempts to rapidly stab a knife back and forth between one’s splayed fingers, with the hand palm-down on a table; she missed, stabbing herself and staining her white glove with blood, which Picasso later kept in his apartment. In contrast to the sunny beauty of Picasso’s paintings of Marie-Thérèse, he frequently portrayed Dora as a sad, suffering “woman in tears.” Their affair lasted

Dora Maar, Self-portrait, nine years, ending in 1943 when Picasso moved on to the younger Francoise Gilot. Distressed by her 1930. abandonment, Dora Maar was sent by friends to receive psychiatric care from Jacques Lacan as she struggled to re-establish her emotional stability, complicated by the sudden death of her best friend Nusch Éluard in 1946. She eventually returned to her old social circle, reaffirming her faith in Roman Catholicism and dividing her time between Paris and the house that Picasso had given her in Provence. She continued to write poetry and practice photography until her death in 1997. Francoise Gilot (b. 1921) also met Picasso in a restaurant, in the spring of 1943. A young artist herself, she moved in with him in 1946 and the couple had two children together in their ten-year relationship: Claude and Paloma. Though Picasso greatly influenced Gilot’s work as a cubist painter, she slowly devel- oped her own artistic style, favoring organic figures over the sharp edges and angular forms of Picasso’s work. In 1953, Picasso’s affections transferred to his next lover, Jacqueline Roque, leaving Gilot to create her own way as an independent woman and artist. She married artist Luc Simon in 1955 with whom she Francoise Gilot, mother to Picasso’s children Claude had a daughter, Aurelia, before the pair divorced in 1962. In 1963, Francoise published Life with Picasso, and Paloma, 1942. her account of their extraordinary love affair; Picasso unsuccessfully challenged its publication, but henceforth refused to see Claude or Paloma ever again. Francoise remarried in 1970 to , the pioneer of the polio vaccine, with whom she would remain until his death in 1995. She continues to paint, her work exhibited as recently as May 2012 at the Gagosian Gallery in New York City. Jacqueline Roque (1927-1986) met Picasso in 1953 where she worked at the Madoura Pottery in Vallauris, France, when she was 27 years old and he was 72. The story goes that he drew a dove on her house in chalk and brought her a single rose every day until she agreed to date him six months later. She began to appear in Picasso’s paintings as early as 1954; he depicted her dark eyes and eyebrows, high cheekbones, and classical profile in increasingly abstracted forms until 1972. Though Picasso had serious relationships with many women throughout his life, he was still officially married to Olga Khokhlova until her death in 1955; Jacqueline Roque became his second wife in 1961, until his death in 1973. After his death, Jacqueline and Francoise fought viciously over the distribution of his estate,

Jacqueline Roque, Picasso’s eventually agreeing to mutually establish the Musée Picasso in Paris. Jacqueline committed suicide by second wife. gunshot in 1986, at the age of 59.

13 Herbert Siguenza in Arizona Theatre Company’s production of A Weekend with Pablo Picasso. Photo by Darren Scott. PICASSO’S WORLD VIEW

“The world today doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?” – Pablo Picasso

Originally born in Spain, Pablo Picasso spent much of the time in between his Blue Period and his Rose Period travelling between Barcelona and Paris, experiencing the distinct artistic environments in the two cities. When he moved permanently to France in 1904, he began experimenting with a more avant-garde form of painting, as opposed to his previous classically-inspired style; his piece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) is considered a proto-cubist work, one of the first clear examples of the artistic ingenuity that would come to characterize Picasso’s entire career. By 1911, Picasso was considered the inventor of cubism; inspired by African and Native American work, its colors are much more vibrant and the shapes more abstract than in earlier artistic styles. In 1914, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, an incident which quickly escalated into World War I, an international conflict unprecedented in scale and destruction. While the world around him shook, Picasso delved into the chaos through continued exploration in new forms of artistic expression. One of the major influential political movements of the time was dadaism, an avant-garde political and artistic movement characterized by collage and abstraction, with the subject of such works being freed from “normalcy.” The movement was largely anti-war and anti-bourgeois, and its influences were made manifest by many of the major artists of Europe. Because Picasso’s home in Avignon was not in an active war zone, he was able to continue his work uninterrupted, exploring the anti-aesthetic, anti-idealism facets of dadaism that would later give way to the slightly more focused yet still unconventional techniques of surrealism in the 1920s. By 1916, Picasso’s work was predominantly dadaist and pre-surrealist in composition, exemplified in pieces such as (1925) and Nude on a Beach (1929). After the First World War ended and the German, Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman Empires were left destitute, a new socio- political tone overtook the art of the era. ushered in a business-like and simple form of art characterized by its simplicity, and the Novecento Italiano form in Italy was born out of the fascist movement of 1923; it was considered an artistic “call to order,” which denounced the of the previous decade. Picasso returned briefly to his classical roots, but the tumult and unrest in the world around him, as well as in his personal life, ultimately led him to more surrealist creations. One of Picasso’s most influential pieces of surrealist work was inspired by the Spanish Civil War. After the upheaval of World War I, the Spanish people felt oppressed by the new Second Spanish Republic. In 1936, José Sanjurjo and the Nationalists declared open opposition to the government, obtaining reinforcements from early Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and ultimately installed General Francisco Franco as Head of the Spanish State, a position he would fill until his death in 1975. In the takeover, 4,000 civilians lost their lives in an aerial attack by the Nationalists on a small town called Guernica, thought to be the first air raid on a defenseless civilian population. Greatly moved by the political turmoil, Picasso painted furiously during the Spanish Civil War, giving the world pieces like The Dream and Lie of Franco (1937) and Guernica (1937), which is thought to be his first overtly political piece. Francisco Franco officially exiled Picasso from Spain because of his artistic outspokenness, leaving Picasso to grapple with his ejection from his homeland.

14 At the same time, Nazi Germany began to rise to power. As the Axis Powers began taking over Europe, the strict censorship enforced by the Nazis stifled much of the art world. They considered Picasso’s art to be “degenerate,” forcing Picasso to paint in secret in Nazi-occupied France. While he was never arrested, Picasso was very clear about his distaste for the Nazi Party and their politics; a famous story asserts that once a German officer entered Picasso’s apartment and, upon seeing a photo of Guernica, asked, “Did you do that?” to which Picasso responded, “No, you did.” Despite the Nazi presence in France, Picasso continued to paint through World War II, denouncing the Nazi Party through his art until August of 1944, when the French Resistance staged an uprising that drove the Nazis from Paris and restored France to a Republic. It was during this period that he also took up writing as a creative outlet, producing more than 300 poems between 1935 and 1939. After the French Liberation, Picasso became an official member of the French Communist Party. His membership was invaluable as his name and fame raised their cause to international prominence. Picasso considered his party membership an inclusion in a family rather than as a strictly political move, having felt isolated and displaced since his exile from Spain in 1939, and he remained a loyal member until his death in 1973.

GLOSSARY

Abhorrence: A strong feeling of revulsion, or disgusted loathing. Beethoven: Ludwig van Beethoven was a prolific German composer and pianist, crucial in the transition from the Classical to the Romantic era in Western art music, and one of the most influential composers of all time. Café: Spanish word for “coffee.” Caste: Any class or group of people perceived as socially distinct; a hierarchical division of society that determines exclusive privileges based upon socio-economic, religious, political, German composer, Ludwig van or a combination of categorizations. Beethoven. Portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820. Cessation: The fact or process of ending or being brought to an end; termination. Dichotomy: A division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being directly opposed or entirely different. Diphtheria: An acute, highly contagious bacterial disease causing inflammation of the mucous membranes and the formation of a false membrane in the throat which hinders breathing and swallowing, as well as potentially fatal heart and nerve damage. Espadrillas: Casual, usually flat shoes originating in the Pyrenees, consisting of a canvas or Map depicting the location of Gibraltar. cotton fabric upper and a flexible sole made of jute rope. Gibraltar: A British Overseas Territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranian, captured from Spain in 1704 during the War of Spanish Succession on behalf of the Habsburg pretender to the Spanish throne and ceded to Britain in 1713. Gouloises: A French brand of short, wide, unfiltered cigarette made with dark tobaccos from Syria and Turkey which produce a strong, distinctive aroma. Guernica: One of Pablo Picasso’s most enduring paintings, created in response to the bombing of Guernica, Spain, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. Inundate: To overwhelm with things or people to be dealt with; to flood. Joder: The Spanish equivalent of the English F-word, often used figuratively to refer to something “screwed up.”

15 Joseph Stalin: Leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953; Picasso once portrayed Stalin as a bouquet of flowers, and was heavily criticized for the unrealistic portrait. A self-declared Communist, Picasso took offense at the criticism and distanced himself from Soviet politics. La Californie: The name of Picasso’s villa in the hills above Cannes, France, where he moved in 1955 with Jacqueline Roque, who would become his second wife. Labyrinth: A complicated irregular network of passages or paths in which it is difficult to find one’s way; a maze. Lyre: A stringed instrument similar to a small, U-shaped harp with strings fixed to a crossbar, used especially in ancient Greece. Manifesto: A public declaration of policy and aims, especially one issued by a political party or candidate, often before an election. A lyre. Matador: A bullfighter, whose task it is to kill the bull. Metamorphosis: A change in form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one. Mosque: A Muslim house of worship. Pablito: Spanish for “little Pablo,” a nickname. Paloma: Picasso’s daughter by his mistress, Francoise Gilot, born in 1949, now a French fashion designer and businesswoman known for her jewelry designs and her signature perfumes. Panettone: A type of sweet bread loaf originally from , usually prepared for Christmas and New Year in parts of Europe. Panettone. Pope: Head of the Roman Catholic Church, and the bishop of Rome, Italy. Prism: A solid geometric figure whose two end faces are similar, equal, and parallel rectilinear figures and whose sides are parallelograms, especially an object that is transparent and trian- gular with refracting surfaces that separate white light into a spectrum of colors; used figuratively to refer to the clarification or distortion afforded by a particular viewpoint. Proverb: A short, popular saying that states a general truth, lesson, or piece of advice; an adage. Receptacle: An object, container or device that receives or holds something. Shakespeare: English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer and dramatist in the English language. Treaty of Burgos: Declaration of Nationalist victory made by General Francisco Franco from Burgos, Spain, on April 1, 1939, ending the Spanish Civil War and initiating the Nationalists’ forty-year reign of brutal Francoist authoritarianism. Voyeur: A person who derives sexual pleasure from observing sexual objects or acts, especially from a secret vantage point.

16 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITIES

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. What was your perception of Pablo Picasso, as a person or an artist, before seeing the play? Did that perception or opinion change after seeing this play? What did you learn about the man? 2. How did combine visual art with performance? What effect does his act of painting on stage have on the audience experience? 3. How does Picasso define his art? 4. Why do you think Picasso experienced such success as an artist during his lifetime? How does he feel about his celebrity? 5. Do you think art and politics mix? Can you think of specific instances of when that mix was successful? 6. Describe the significance of Picasso’s Guernica. What was its political impact? 7. How would you describe Picasso’s attitude towards women? His thoughts on love? Do you agree or disagree with him? 8. What was your favorite design element of the show? How did the set, lights, costumes, sound and props contribute to the playwright’s story? 9. Describe the role of the audience in this play. Was the experience different than other theatre events you’ve attended? How did it affect your connection to the character and story?

LANGUAGE ARTS ACTIVITIES Use some, or all, of the following prompt questions to generate ideas for a piece of writing inspired by a Picasso painting of your choosing.

Describe 1. What words would you use to describe this art work? 2. How would you describe the lines, shapes and colors? 3. What observations can you make about it? 4. How would you describe this artwork to a person who cannot see it?

Relate 5. What does this remind you of? What things do you recognize in this artwork? What interests you most about this work of art?

Analyze 6. What can you tell me about the colors in this piece? What color is used most? 7. Is the work realistic or abstract? 8. What question(s) would you ask the artist about this work if they were here?

17 Interpret 9. What other titles could you give the work? 10. What sounds could this work make? 11. What do you think this work is about?

Evaluate 12. What makes this work ‘good’? 13. What is troublesome about this work? 14. What is worth remembering about this work of art?

Writing Prompt 15. If this artwork could speak, what would it say?

THEATRE ARTS ACTIVITIES Using the writing prompt from the Language Arts Activity listed above to generate ideas, create an original monologue or piece of performance – or movement, a song, a short scene or group activity – inspired by a Picasso painting of your choice. Perform these original pieces in class. Did any common performance elements or themes emerge? Could those performance pieces be curated and presented to the public the same way visual art is curated and presented in a museum?

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