PRESS RELEASE 25 October 2013 at 11.30 am The exhibition, presenting a first selection of donated images, will be open to the public from 25 October 2013 to 12 January 2014. Museu Picasso Press and Communication Dept. Montcada 15 - 23 08003 Barcelona Tel. 932 563 021 / 26 [email protected] CONTENTS 1. PRESENTATION 2. THE DONATION Technical details The selection Relevance for the museum's collection 3. A BRIEF PROFILE OF DAVID DOUGLAS DUNCAN Biography Bibliography 4. THE SHOW The Donation of David Douglas Duncan 5. LIST OF RECENT DONATIONS TO THE MUSEUM 1. PRESENTATION The Museu Picasso, Barcelona presents the donation made by David Douglas Duncan – a photojournalist of international renown and a friend of Pablo Picasso's – of a set of 161 photographs selected by Duncan himself and donated on occasion of the 50th anniversary of the museum opening. A first selection of 64 of these pictures has given shape to The Donation of David Douglas Duncan, which will be open to the public from 25 October 2013 to 12 January 2014 in the galleries that welcome the museum's temporary exhibitions. The incorporation of this set of photographs, taken by David Douglas Duncan between the years 1956 and 1962, enhances the museum's documentary collection. The pictures are a fine example of the close ties between photographer and artist and reveal, on the one hand, everyday scenes of Picasso and his family – particularly with Jacqueline, his last wife – and, on the other, bear exceptional witness to the artist's creative processes. We should like to thank David Douglas Duncan for his generosity, enthusiasm and involvement with the Museu Picasso, Barcelona. Photo 1 2. THE DONATION Author: David Douglas Duncan, with the exception of the picture of Picasso and Duncan, taken by photographer Gjon Mili. Characteristics: The donation consists of 161 b/w photographs, modern digital prints on Inkjet Gold Fibre Silk paper, 50 x 60 cm. Date: Photographs taken between 1956 and 1962. Provenance: David Douglas Duncan Photo 2 In October 1996 David Douglas Duncan donated his personal archive to the Harry Ransom Center, at the University of Texas, Austin, that also keeps the photographer's negatives and has produced the digital prints, printed by the well-known Parisian photographic laboratory Central Dupon Images, under the supervision of Jean- Françoise Leroy (who has conceived and directed the famous VISA pour l’image photojournalism festival held in Perpignan). David Douglas Duncan's donation to the Barcelona museum is a tribute to the memory of his friendship with Pablo and Jacqueline Picasso, with the artist's children Claude and Paloma Ruiz-Picasso and with Jacqueline's daughter, Catherine Hutin. The Selection To quote David Douglas Duncan, the selection encompasses the foremost photographs he ever took of the artist. These are pictures of his life with Jacqueline and document what he considers to be the best period in Picasso's life, the years he spent at La Californie, his house in Cannes. According to Duncan, the early days of their friendship, in the years 1956 and 1957, clearly revealed the artist's zest for life in the company of his offsprings and he is still moved when he remembers the wonderful dinners held in Picasso's kitchen. All in all, it was well worth the effort. Relevance for the museum's collections The set of photographs donated by David Douglas Duncan is of extraordinary value for the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, one of the missions of which is to be a key reference point in the research and study of Picasso. Many were the photographers who portrayed Picasso, and they were all extremely important, yet the friendship and harmony between Duncan and the artist favoured the capturing of these special moments in the lives of Picasso and Jacqueline, and enabled the photographer to closely follow the work processes that explain the artist's oeuvre. The value of these pictures lies, above all, in the ensemble: they are portraits but they are at once features presenting a succession of scenes that tell the story of a specific period in his life scene from the point of view of a friend. And this is another of the reasons why this donation is especially welcome, for it is a personal account of the artist in the form of a photographic chronicle by David Douglas Duncan. The 161 photographs that Duncan has donated will form a part of the museum's collections, thereby furthering the knowledge of the artist and his oeuvre. 3. A BRIEF PROFILE OF DAVID DOUGLAS DUNCAN David Douglas Duncan (Kansas City, Missouri, 23 January 1916) is a photojournalist of international renown who has published his works in a range of specialised magazines and monographic studies. He was a member of the US Marines until February 1946, the year he joined the staff of Life magazine as a reporter. In 1956 he left Life and began working for the review Collier's, although at the end of that same year the firm closed. From then on he would work as a freelance photographer, covering numerous international armed conflicts, including World War Two, the Korean and Vietnam wars. In 1991 he received the Joseph Sprague Award granted by the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) in recognition of his professional career in photo- reportage. A friend of Pablo Picasso's since they first met in February 1956, his photographs of the artist constitute an exhaustive catalogue of the private sphere of the artist's studio and the home he shared with his wife Jacqueline Roque. This photographic oeuvre is dotted with images of family, friends and the celebrities who visited them at Cannes, La Californie, at Vauvenargues Castle in Provence and at the country house in Notre-Dame-de-Vie, in Mougins. Originally published in eight volumes, it has been translated into several languages: The Private World of Pablo Picasso (1958), Picasso's Picassos (1961), Goodbye Picasso (1974), The Silent Studio (1976), ¡Viva Picasso! (1980), Picasso and Jacqueline (1988), Picasso Paints a Portrait (1996) and Lump (2006). David Douglas Duncan’s Books about Pablo Picasso Duncan, David Douglas, The Private World of Pablo Picasso. New York, The Ridge Press, 1958. Duncan, David Douglas, Picasso's Picasso. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1961. Duncan, David Douglas, Goodbye Picasso. New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1974 Duncan, David Douglas, The Silent Studio. New York, W.W. Norton., 1976 Duncan, David Douglas. ¡Viva Picasso!: a Centennial Celebration 1881-1981. New York, The Viking Press, 1980 Duncan, David Douglas, Picasso and Jacqueline. New York [etc.], W.W. Norton, 1988. Duncan, David Douglas, Picasso Paints a Portrait. NewYork, Harry N. Abrams, 1996 [ Duncan, David Douglas; Picasso, Paloma, Photographs Picasso. New York, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, 2000 Duncan, David Douglas, Lump. London, Thames and Hudson, 2006 David Douglas Duncan’s Photojournalism Books Duncan, David Douglas, This is War! : A Photo-narrative in Three Parts. New York, Harper & Brothers, c. 1951 Duncan, David Douglas, Yankee Nomad: A Photographic Odyssey. New York [etc.], Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966 Duncan, David Douglas, I Protest!. New York, The New American Library, 1968 Duncan, David Douglas, Self-Portrait: U.S.A. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1969 Duncan, David Douglas, Prismatics: Exploring a New World. New York [etc.], Harper & Row, 1972 Duncan, David Douglas, The World of Allah. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1982 Duncan, David Douglas, Photo Nomad. New York [etc.], W.W. Norton, 2003 Books about David Douglas Duncan La magia de Picasso [exhibition catalogue]. Barcelona, Fundació Caixa de Pensions / Fundación Pablo Ruiz Picasso - Museo Casa Natal (Málaga), 1989 David Douglas Duncan: One Life, A Photographic Odyssey [exhibition catalogue]. Austin, Tex., Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, 1999 Ansari, Stephanie, Picasso crea a través de la cámara de David Douglas Duncan [exhibition catalogue.]. Málaga, Museo Picasso Málaga, 2011 Ansari, Stephanie, Picasso à l'oeuvre dans l'objectif de David Douglas Duncan [exhibition catalogue.]. [Paris], Gallimard, 2012 4. THE SHOW This is the first of the two exhibitions devoted to the David Douglas Duncan donation. The 64 pictures on display now under the title The Donation of David Douglas Duncan were all taken in the same physical space, La Californie, one of the studio-cum-houses Pablo Picasso had in the south of France. The next exhibition, foreseen for the autumn of 2014, will bring together all the pictures that are directly related to art works in the museum's permanent collection, and will propose a dialogue between the actual works and the images that captured the various stages in the artist's creative process. The Donation of David Douglas Duncan Duncan met Pablo Picasso on 8 February 1956, the same day he had stopped over at his home in the south of France on his way back from the East and before travelling to Africa. Robert Capa had promised to introduce him to the artist, but had died two years before being able to do so, in the First Indochina War. Duncan rung Picasso's home La Californie in Cannes, introducing himself as a friend of Capa's who just wanted to greet him. Jacqueline answered the phone and invited Duncan to pay them a visit. The encounter marked the beginning of a warm- hearted friendship with Picasso and Jacqueline that would last until the artist's death in 1973, seventeen years later. Their relationship was captured in Duncan's photographs, especially those produced between 1956 and 1962, which give us a glimpse of Picasso's life and artistic processes as seen through the eyes of a friend. This year, in which we commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Museu Picasso, Duncan pays tribute to his friend by donating 161 of these photographs to the museum (modern digital prints measuring 50 x 60 cm developed on Inkjet Gold Fibre Silk paper).