PAST EXHIBITION

Picasso Prints & Drawings 1901-1971

December 15, 2007—January 14, 2008

This exhibition encompasses the major periods and innovations of Picasso’s career, beginning with a rather abstract 1901 drawing of the master in his studio, a proto-cubist etching from 1909, and a large, full blown cubist drawing from the key years of 1913-1914, this being the tipping point that marks the inception of the cubist period proper. These early modernist works, abstract though they are, display Picasso’s absolute virtuosity as a draftsman, which belies clichéd ideas as to modern art being anti-classical. This theme - the primacy of drawing - characterizes the main thrust of the balance of Picasso’s career as well and is the inescapable, de facto thesis of this show. It may also be noted that Picasso appears to cycle though periods of more and less abstraction, before and after the world wars. It is as though the stability of peace provided a psycho-social climate for experimentation, i.e., radical deconstruction of existing form and order, whereas after the upheaval of war he returns to classical or traditional styles, as though craving the security and comfort of the familiar. Given that Picasso was one of the great visionaries of the 20 th century, it will be interesting to see if a similar pattern emerges in art in response to the events of the present.

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