“¡ PICASSO ! ”

I posted the  Picasso Mania  chapter on the Sunday after the horrors in Paris. I can’t say that loving Picasso’s work as I do and looking at it on a computer screen made me feel much better - but I was doing something and not just staring into space, wondering where the world was going...

 The Picasso museum was not on the list for the other day as I had hoped to go to a series of galleries close to it - where had they gone? Buildings and streets have a strange way of moving around in Paris, as if they are daunting me. Walking back toward home, disappointed, I saw that the Picasso museum seemed to be very empty. No queues at all. I had a bit more than two hours to see the new presentation.

In I went.This was the anniversary exhibition. One year since the museum had re-opened. One year since I had been there.
Just to give you a small idea of what I would be looking at for the following hours….

The exhibition at a glance :

4 distinct parts: the history of the museum, the collection masterpieces, Picasso the public figure, Picasso the private figure
– 105 paintings (including 86 by Picasso)
– 92 sculptures (85 by Picasso) including 22 ceramic pieces, 13 objects and 1 textile artwork
– 192 graphic artworks (186 by Picasso) including 94 illustrations, 20 sketch books, 10 illustrated books, 62 prints and et 6 print matrices
– 190 photographs
– 1 contemporary installation
– 4 films and about 30 INA extracts
– 314 archives including 223 documents and correspondences, 38 periodicals, 31 publications and 22 objects

Daunting eh? It’s for sure that there would be no way of digesting it all. However, after Picasso mania http://discovmaggsie.blogspot.fr/2015/11/picassomania.html, it would surely prove to be a better presentation. It was. In fact there were many rooms which I remembered well from my previous visit so this time around I would look at the paintings I knew little about or not all…Yes, there were many. What a pleasure though. The afternoon crowds had dwindled to just a few people. This time, I could look closely at each picture, photograph it, come back to it…the pleasure of seeing the work on my computer was as stimulating. There you can see even more detail when looking at a work on the screen….

I am going to show you his work in the order of the photographs. I followed  the order of the rooms starting on level -1, working my way up through the 4 distinct parts. Stopping when I was drawn to something I had never seen or seen perhaps and not remembered.

Here we go….

To begin with. These were tiny. The guitare on the left was painted carton, string and stripes on the carton. Done on the 30th April in 1926.

On the right, the woman in an armchair was just as small and made up on carton, string all sown onto carton and painted in oil. She was done on the 1st February 1940. Unfortunately with photography you are unable to see the different dimensions or layers - but they were there.

 Although he had done a series of "Les Femmes d'Alger d'après Delacroix" on the 2nd of January 1955 and in December 1954 he was drawing them again.

  Just imagine a piece of brick becomes the head of a women on the 12th July 1962

 Although I had seen the woman's head (February 1905) it seemed even more striking next to the page of bulls done on the 25th December 1945.

Don't you think that this owl inside is a beautiful bird? (7th December 1946)

Skull, Sea Urchins and lamp on table (1946)

Yes, I know you have seen Nusch Eluard (Autumn 1937) but for me she has a rare smiling face!

Femme à l'Oreiller (10 July, 1969)

Of course Histoire de Sabartès et his neighbour "WIll you have a glass?" is prettty daring.

5th May 1957

And from his n° 13 notebook done at the end of June, beginiing of July, 1907

La Liseuse (The voracious reader)  29th January 1956

Both are just posters for exhibitions

Quite a beautiful bull don't you think? 5th January 1946

designing his hand - a study - (1897-1899- remember he was born in 1881)

Studies done for self portraits in 1906

The artist in front of his canvas - 22 March 1938

Portrait of Manuel Hugué called "Manolo" - 1904

You have see the Three Dutchgirls too. 1905

A portrait of Picasso done by André Derain in 1908

Studies: woman in a long dress and sculpture - 1907

Wooden sculptures - 1906- 1907

Nude with lifted arms in 1908 and Head of a woman - 1908

Fernande boxwood sculpted 1906

Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire n° 126 done in 1908

Paintings done in 1914 - the war period

Guitare in 1912 - cut carton, paper stuck, string and traces of pencil -1912

Here you can judge the sizes much better

Head of a man in Autumn 1908 - heading for the cubist period

1909

Nakes woman, 3/4 of back - 1907

Man at the chimney - 1916

Seen this too and love the man with the moustache - 1914

Three dansers - 1919. Olga in the middle

Olga with a shawl - 1920

Bather - 22nd February 1928

Bathers 1928

Bathers on the beach - 12th August 1928

Bather with a ball - 1st September 1929

Fabulous! Portrait of a young girl- 3rd April, 1936

The family, 1922

This too you have seen: "The Man with a sheep" 1943

Pregnant woman - (2e state) 1950-59

Pregnant woman - (2e state) 1950-59

The Painter and his model - 15th November, 1964

Nude lying down - 1967

Young girl sitting down - 1970

Musician, 26th May 1972

Now the series of "Déjeuner sur l'Herbe" after Manet.....

26-30 January, 1962

26 January - 13th March - 1962

13th July, 1961

12th July, 1961

17th June 1962

The child with doves 1943

Woman sitting, 5th March 1945

An anatomy: three women, 28th February 1933

An anatomy: three women, 1st March 1933

Wooden sculptures done in 1930

Composition with a butterfly, 15th September 1932: Material, wood, string,thumb tack and oil on canvas

Composition 10th September 1920

The Kitchen, November 1948

Guitare, 1913

Pigeon in bronze - 1953-54

Dove, 1949

The face of Peace - 1951

Stalin " to your health" - this was his communist period - 1949

Supplicant - 18th December 1937

Woman crying - 24th October 1937

Now from his personal collection

Joan Miro - self portrait 1919

Child playing with a truck - 27th December, 1953

Woman in an armchair - 3rd July 1946

Jacqueline in the atelier, 13th November 1957

Olga with her hair down in an arm chair and with crossed hands - 5th September 1921

The buffet - 23rd March - 1959 - 23rd January - 1960

I had come in as you can see in broad day light and now I was leaving - feeling very happy.