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Protean Picasso: Drawings and Prints from the National Gallery of Canada & Selected Paintings from International Collections
Vancouver Art Gallery
Vancouver BC thru Jan 15, 2006
Picasso, Le Sculpteur (The Sculptor) (1931) (Paris, 7 December), oil on plywood courtesy: Musée National PIcasso © Picasso Estate (Paris)/SODRAC (Montréal), 2005[Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver BC, through Jan 15]
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Protean Picasso at the Vancouver Art Gallery spans a period of nearly fifty years, from Picasso’s Blue Period of the early 1900s; through the teens and 1920s when he experimented with Cubism and sculptural assemblage; to works from the 1930s when Picasso responded to the horrifying events of the Spanish Civil War.
The exhibition of 11 paintings and 83 drawings and prints features a rare, complete set of prints from the Vollard Suite (1931-34), as well as, a 1931 painting of the artist contemplating a bust, entitled The Sculptor. A large canvas titled Luncheon on the Grass (1961) revisits Eduoard Manet’s Le Petit Dejeuner; and a later self-portrait presents Picasso as The Artist (1963) with his two eyes blended into one, like Cyclops.
The ability of Picasso to continuously re-invent himself made him the foremost artist of the 20th Century. A “vertical invader”, he appropriated and reconceived styles and mediums from indigenous cultures and the fine art world at large. The exhibition explores his exceptional ability to incorporate other cultural forms in his work and to originate new expressive modes. As Senior Curator Ian Thom writes, “Protean Picasso is aptly named as a reflection of the artist’s extraordinary ability to change, expand and re-invent himself.”
Picasso, Weeping Woman (1937), etching drypoint, engraving, aquatint on laid paper, courtesy: Musée National PIcasso © Picasso Estate (Paris)/SODRAC (Montréal), 2005 [Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver BC, through Jan 15]
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Picasso, Face (1928), lithograph on wove paper, courtesy: National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, © Succession Pablo Picasso (Paris)/SODRAC (Montréal), 2003 [Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver BC, through Jan 15]
![Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore - Untitled [Don’t Kiss me I’m in Training]](bg/VAG-Picasso03bg.jpg) |
Picasso, The Frugal Meal (1904), etching on heavy wove paper (watermark: Van Gelder Zonen), courtesy: National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, © Succession Pablo Picasso (Paris)/SODRAC (Montréal), 2003 [Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver BC, through Jan 15]
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Picasso, Woman in a Hat with Flowers (1944, 6 March), oil on canvas, courtesy: Nattional Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, gift of Nahum and Sheila Gelber, Montreal, 1997 [Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver BC, through Jan 15]
![Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore - Untitled [Don’t Kiss me I’m in Training]](bg/VAG-Picasso05bg.jpg) |
Lecture: The exhibition includes a lecture by Picasso scholar Neil Cox, Head of the Department of Art History and Theory at the University of Essex, UK, on December 9, 7pm at Robson Square Lecture Theatre. For tickets call 604-662-4717.
www.vanartgallery.bc.ca
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