Large Print Picasso and Paper In order to adhere to social distancing measures and to keep our staff and visitors safe, physical copies of the large print exhibition guides will no longer be available in the galleries. To help you make the most of your visit to the Royal Academy, our large print exhibition guides are available to download as PDFs. No app is required. They are freely available in each exhibition’s section of our website. Simply download the file to your device, then read – or follow the below instructions to listen to the introductions and labels as you go round. iOS devices • On your iPhone, go to “Settings”. Next, tap “Accessibility”. • Hit “Spoken Content”, then tap the toggle switch for “Speak Selection” to switch it on. • You can now customise the speech rate, default language and listen to an audio sample. • After that, go to your iOS PDF reader, and open a PDF file. • Highlight the text that you want to read and tap “Speak”. 36 Android devices • To use Google Text-to-speech on your Android device, go to “Settings”. Next, tap “Language & Input”. • Select “Text-to-speech output”, and then choose Google Text-to-speech Engine as your preferred engine. • You can now customise the speech rate, default language and listen to an audio sample. • To hear items read aloud, tap the Select to Speak icon, then click on a specific word, or drag your finger across the screen to select a longer passage of text, and tap the play button to begin the text-to-speech playback. Alternatively, you can tap the play button to hear everything on screen. Depending on your device, the following free apps may prove useful. But you won’t need to download any app to read the PDF or listen to the introductory text and labels. 37 iOS devices – PDF Voice Reader Aloud Another method to hear large print text read aloud on iOS devices is to use PDF Voice Reader Aloud – a text- to-speech app which you can download for free from the App Store. It offers 31 different languages and makes it easy to adjust the speed of speaking rate. Follow the steps below and start reading PDF files on your mobile. • Get the application from the App Store. • Open the PDF file inside the app. • Tap the upper right corner to choose the languages, select the voice, hit the button left to the play button to adjust the speed of the speaking rate. • Lastly, tap the play button to read the PDF out loud on iPhone or iPad. Android devices – Voice Aloud • First, download the free Voice Aloud app in the Google Play Store. • Download the PDF version of the large print guide. • Select the folder icon and navigate to the downloaded file. • You will be prompted with a set of text import options. • Click “Open file” once you have selected your settings and Voice Aloud will begin reading your file. 38 Picasso and Paper Main Galleries 25 January – 2 August 2020 Contents Page 2 Introduction Page 5 This exhibition has been made Chronology possible as a result of the Page 14 Government Indemnity Scheme. The Royal Academy of Arts would like to Early Years and thank HM Government for providing Blue Period indemnity and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Page 18 Arts Council England for arranging List of works the indemnity. Page 28 Rose Period All works are by Pablo Picasso (1881- Page 32 1973) unless otherwise stated. List of works For conservation reasons, light levels in the galleries are kept low. Lead supporter Supported by Supported by The Magic Trust 1 55 100 Introduction “To this day, I remember him lost in a mountain of papers.” - Jaume Sabartés Pablo Picasso’s fascination with paper grew from his deep appreciation of the physical world and a desire to manipulate diverse materials. Nowhere is his protean spirit more evident than in his relentless exploration of working on and with paper. He drew incessantly, using many different media, on a wide range of papers. He assembled collages of cut-and-pasted papers; created cut-outs from pieces of torn and burnt paper; produced both documentary photographs and manipulated photographs on paper; and spent decades investigating an array of printmaking techniques on paper supports. This exhibition presents a broad overview of Picasso’s lifelong engagement with paper. 2 The objects were chosen to show the range and diversity of his use of paper, guided by the aim of illuminating the creative process of one of the most inventive artists of our time. To provide context and crucial points of reference, the paper works are displayed alongside a limited selection of closely related paintings, sculptures and didactic materials. Far from using paper merely as a surface for preliminary studies for paintings or sculptures, Picasso invented a universe of art involving various types of paper in myriad formats and contexts. This activity sprang from his inexhaustible compulsion to expand the boundaries of thought and aesthetic experience, and constitutes a significant contribution to the history of modern art. 3 Wherever possible, we have included detailed descriptions of the types of paper Picasso used in each artwork. A glossary of terms can be found within your gallery guide, which provides further information on specific techniques and paper types referenced in the wall labels. 4 Picasso Chronology 1881: Pablo Picasso is born in Málaga on 25 October, the first-born child of José Ruiz y Blasco, a painter and drawing tutor, and María Picasso y López. At the age of 11, he enters the School of Fine Arts in La Coruña, where he excels in the academic style of drawing. 1895: After the death of his youngest sister Conchita, the family moves to Barcelona, where large-scale works by the teenage Pablo are included in public exhibitions. 1899: Frequents a new tavern, Els Quatre Gats, and meets fellow artists, sculptors and poets, including Carles Casagemas, Manolo Hugué and Jaume Sabartés. 1900: Moves into a studio with Casagemas. Exhibition of 150 drawings by Picasso staged at Els Quatre Gats, which funds his first visit to Paris. 5 1901: Casagemas’s suicide on 17 February shocks Picasso. He moves into Casagemas’s old studio in May, where he prepares for his first exhibition in Paris, arranged by art dealer Ambroise Vollard. Works in predominantly blue hues, capturing impoverished figures he spots in local cafés and hospitals. 1904–1905: Settles in Paris and completes first attempts at etching (‘The Frugal Meal’). Abandonment of his monochrome blue palette. He focuses on depicting circus and travelling performers. 1906: Travels to Gósol in the Spanish Pyrenees in June with companion Fernande Olivier. In the autumn, Picasso develops his ‘Rose’ period using rose and ochre tones, along with a stylised treatment of figures and facial features influenced by Iberian sculptures seen at the Louvre. 6 1907: Preparatory studies for ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’; completes the first version of the work on canvas in May. In June, the impact of African sculpture at the Musée du Trocadéro inspires him to rework the composition, finishing it in July. 1909: Visits Horta de Ebro; produces a series of landscapes, portraits and still-lifes that mark the beginnings of Cubism. 1910: Works on etchings for Max Jacob’s ‘Saint Matorel,’ published in 1911, containing five illustrations by Picasso. 1912: First paper constructions and papiers collés. Writes to friend and fellow Cubist Georges Braque on 9 October: “I am using the most recent papery and powdery processes… I’m dreaming up a guitar”. 7 1917: Starts work on stage, curtain and costume designs for Jean Cocteau’s ballet ‘Parade’, commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev the previous year. Meets Stravinsky and Olga Khokhlova – a ballerina of the Ballets Russes – in Rome. Picasso marries Khokhlova in 1918. 1919: Visits London while working on another ballet with Diaghilev, ‘Le Tricorne’. Paul Rosenberg’s gallery in Paris holds an exhibition of 167 drawings and watercolours by the artist. 1921: In July, moves to Fontainebleau with his wife Olga Khokhlova and their five-month-old son, Paulo. Begins a period of intensive work, exploring both Cubist and neoclassical styles. 1925: In January, the journal ‘La Révolution surréaliste’ reproduces two pages of “constellation” drawings from Picasso’s sketchbooks. He participates in the first Surrealist exhibition, held at Galerie Pierre, Paris. 8 1927: Meets Marie-Thérèse Walter and produces engravings on the theme of the model and painter in the studio. 1931: Works on a series of etchings which will later form part of the ‘Vollard Suite’. Two books illustrated by Picasso are published by Vollard – ‘Les Métamorphoses d’Ovide’ and Balzac’s ‘Le Chef-d’oeuvre inconnu’. 1935: An exhibition of Picasso’s 1912–1914 papiers-collés is held at Galerie Pierre. By May, Picasso has stopped painting and instead turns to writing semi-automatic poetry. ‘Minotauromachy’ etching is printed by Lacourière in November. 1936: Meets photographer Dora Maar. With Maar’s assistance, Picasso executes a series of around twenty photograms using the cliché-verre technique. 9 1937: Spanish government invites Picasso to create a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris World’s Fair. After the bombing of Guernica on 26 April, Picasso completes around fifty studies on paper, before starting work on the final monumental composition, ‘Guernica’, in early May. 1938: Large collage of ‘Femmes à leur toilette’, originally intended as a cartoon for a tapestry design. 1939–1940: Outbreak of World War II. Picasso begins to make sketches of sheep’s skulls. 1940–1941: Begins to paint in oil on newspaper, and creates a number of torn, creased and burnt paper cut-outs as art supplies run low in occupied Paris.