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Nov 18 - Nov 25, 2001 |
Historic 20th century painting on display
The works of Pablo Picasso, Balthus and Gino Severini at Palazzo Reale in Milan and Venice
By Carmela Piccione
Originally Published: 2001-10-21
The paintings, styles, trends, and memories of the 20th century are being compared in a remarkable exhibit. Most importantly, the best artists who left their mark on that century are being compared: Balthus, Picasso, and Severini, with exhibitions being held respectively at Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Palazzo Reale in Milan, and at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum.
In regards to the Spanish master, 200 masterpieces from 1898 to 1972 are on display until January 27, in a retrospective that sheds light in particular on the most intimate and private Picasso: the father, the husband, the lover. The exhibition's curators are Bernard Ruiz Picasso, Bernice Rose, and Paloma Picasso; the catalogue is being published by Electa.
The path chosen also includes engravings, sculptures, ceramics, bronzes, ballet costumes (Parade, written by Jean Cocteau for Serge de Diaghilev's Ballets Russes), all of them linked to extraordinary female figures who influenced Picasso's work in decisive ways.
His first partner, Fernande Olivier, shared with him the desolate life of the Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre. Those were the years of Guillaume Apollinaire, Gertrude Stein, and Pierre Reverdy; Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the painting that required nine months of work and became the manifesto of Cubism. Some years later, it was the turn of the Russian dancer Olga Kokhlova, an aristocratic and sophisticated beauty, star of the Ballets Russes, the mother of Paulo: she's often portrayed as the Virgin looking upon her Child. In Picasso's life, there was the sudden appearance of Marie Thérèse Walter, a sensual 17-year-old, full of eroticism, often idealized as Ariadne and in orgiastic Bacchanals. Critics spoke of a "disconcerting style metamorphosis, characterized by a diffuse sexual symbolism."
The Thirties were the era of the Spanish Civil War, an era of political commitment and militancy. Picasso mixed with Robert Desnos, André Breton, and Paul Eluard; he began painting Guernica and cultivating his relationship with Dora Maar, who will later be left in favour of Francoise Gilot (the mother of Claude and Paloma) and Jacqueline Roque, the last one.
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