Pablo Picasso was undoubtedly one of the most important and influential artists of the twentieth century and the fiftieth anniversary of his death, which took place in 1973, has fueled renewed international attention this year, thanks also to an immense production which has made possible the presence of his works in many museums. So too at the Albertina in Vienna, which after exploring the years of maturity in 2006 and the political aspects of the Spanish artist’s production in 2010, is now dedicating an exhibition to him drawn from the home collections: “We have important works from all the production phases, starting with the Blue Period and the melancholic “Drowning Drinker” of 1902, with which Picasso reworked the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas, gradually up to the works of the last few years: in all we exhibit over 60 of the 150 works by Albertina, to pay homage to an artist who already became archetypal during his lifetime”, explains the co-curator of the initiative (together with Constanze Malissa) as well as director Klaus-Albrecht Schröder: “With Picasso we are dealing with an artist who not only he imposed with his art managing to be a pioneer in every phase, but who knew how to become a media star. No artist before him enjoyed such interest from public opinion”.
precocious talent
A precocious and irrepressible talent that allowed him access to the Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona as early as 14, Picasso dominated the art world until his death at nearly 92. Original, strong-willed, unpredictably capable of periodically reinventing himself, a womanizer without remission, the artist was at the center of fundamental artistic movements and a whirlwind of love affairs.
The Viennese exhibition offers paintings, drawings, etchings, lithographs from every period. Among the exhibited works, the 1904 engraving “The frugal meal” stands out, with which the then 23-year-old staged poverty in an essential and pregnant way; the oil “The playing cards” created in the torrid summer of 1912 in Céret, in the south of France, when Eva Gouel was at her side; the oil “Woman in a green hat” from 1947, with which Picasso depicts his partner Françoise Gilot, and the surprising, very colorful and mellow “Mediterranean landscape” from 1952, also painted using Ripolin industrial paint, which depicts the Villa La Galloise on the Côte d’Azur where he lived from 1948 with his partner Françoise Gilot and where his daughter Paloma was born. Space is also given at the Albertina to the art of ceramics, to which Picasso dedicated himself with passion after World War II in the village of Vallauris, creating over 4000 pieces : an activity that introduced him to his future, last wife Jacqueline Roque, married at the age of 80 in 1961. In the overview at the Albertina, two works are presented to the public for the first time: from 1911/12 and from the analytic cubist period, “L’étagère”, an oil painting of marked abstraction, restrained in shades of gray to brown, and a key oil of Surrealism, dated 1929, “Woman, sculpture and vase of flowers”. Both works come from the Swiss Barbier-Mueller collection and will remain on loan at the Albertina after the exhibition closes.
“Picasso”, Museo Albertina, Vienna, curated by Klaus-Albrecht Schröder and Constanze Malissa, until 18 June, www.albertina.at
