| Picasso: Themes and Variations at Museum of Modern Art
By STAN PARCHIN
March 15, 2010
| | Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973). Minotauromachy (1935). Etching and engraving. 49.6 x 69.6 cm (19.5 x 27.4 in.). Museum of Modern Art. © 2010 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. | 
| | Pablo Picasso (Spanish,1881-1973). Head of a Woman No. 5, Portrait of Dora Maar (1939). Aquatint and drypoint. 29.8 x 23.8 cm (11.7 x 9.4 in.). Museum of Modern Art. © 2010 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. |
Picasso: Themes and Variations in the second-floor Paul J. Sachs Prints Prints and Illustrated Books Galleries of New York's Museum of Modern Art (March 28-September 6, 2010) explores the master's creative process and extensive involvement with printmaking through 100 of the artist's works. Drawn entirely from MoMA's permanent collection, the special exhibition is complemented by a new online Web site project.
Picasso and Printmaking
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) possessed an insatiable appetite for art in various mediums, including painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking and ceramics. The works on display illustrate his thematic approach to the printed image as well as the forms of artistic experimentation in which he engaged.
In his youth, Picasso purchased a small printing press. The first series of etchings and drypoints he produced with it reflects the dominant themes of his Blue and Rose periods. On view is his Frugal Repast (1904), featuring a destitute couple seated at a sparsely-filled dining table. He continued to create prints intermittently during his formative Cubist years, a time when he cross-fertilized the imagery of related drawings and paintings.
Committed to printmaking from the late 1920s and early 1930s to the end of his career, Picasso called his narrative style of the process "writing fiction." His tales featured the Minotaur, fauns, satyrs and bullfighting. Picasso's Minotauromachy (1935) combined the myth of the fabled Minoan creature with the violence of the bull's slaughter in the modern-day Spanish arena. Under the influence of Surrealism, Picasso also wove elements of his personal life, particularly his relationships with women, into his enigmatic works on paper.
Picasso absorbed the physical features of his female companions into many of his portraits. The prints on display range from his Head of a Woman (1905), a likeness of his lover Madeleine, to complex linoleum cuts of Jacqueline Roque, his second wife until his death in 1973. Also included in the exhibition are images of the young Marie-Thérèse Walter, Olga (the artist's first wife), the model and Surrealist photographer Dora Maar and the aspiring painter Francoise Gilot.
The level of sophistication achieved by Picasso in his prints did not develop in isolation. He learned the intaglio technique from Roger Lacourière, lithography from Fernand Mourlet and his assistants, how to cut linoleum from Hidalgo Arnéra and etching from Aldo and Piero Crommelynck. The installation highlights the contributions each artist made to Picasso's skill as a printmaker.
Interactive Picasso Web Project
In conjunction with Picasso: Themes and Variations, MoMA developed an unprecedented online project that debuts on March 24, 2010. It features more than 250 prints by the master from the museum's collection. The works are arranged topically: Styles and Periods, Subjects and Themes, Publishers and Illustrated Books, Print Techniques, Comparing Print Techniques and Evolving States.
Source
Wye, Deborah. A Picasso Portfolio: Prints from the Museum of Modern Art (exh. cat.). New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010.
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