The Barnes Foundation, in partnership with the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, presents Picasso: The Great War, Experimentation and Change. On view February 21 through May 9, 2016, at the Barnes, the exhibition will travel to the Columbus Museum of Art in June. Curated by Simonetta Fraquelli, an independent curator and specialist in early 20th-century European art, the exhibition examines the dramatic fluctuations in Picasso’s style during the period surrounding the First World War, from 1912 to 1924.
Inspired by
the Columbus Museum’s Still Life with Compote and Glass (1914–1915) by Picasso and the Barnes’s extensive Picasso holdings, Picasso: The Great War, Experimentation and Change features some 50 works by Picasso drawn from major American and European museums and private collections. The show includes oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and four costumes the artist designed for an avant-garde ballet, Parade, in 1917. The show also features several pieces by Picasso’s contemporaries, including Georges Braque and Henri Matisse.
the Columbus Museum’s Still Life with Compote and Glass (1914–1915) by Picasso and the Barnes’s extensive Picasso holdings, Picasso: The Great War, Experimentation and Change features some 50 works by Picasso drawn from major American and European museums and private collections. The show includes oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and four costumes the artist designed for an avant-garde ballet, Parade, in 1917. The show also features several pieces by Picasso’s contemporaries, including Georges Braque and Henri Matisse.
Unlike other members of the Parisian
avant-garde, Picasso never directly addressed the First World War as a
subject in his art. Instead, he began experimenting with naturalistic
representation, turning out classical figure drawings that outraged many
of his avant-garde colleagues—this was quite a shift from the radical
cubist approach he had been developing since 1907. Picasso did not give
up cubism, however. Instead, he shuttled back and forth between two
different styles for over a decade, breaking forms apart and making them
whole again. This exhibition looks closely at the strange ambivalence
that characterized Picasso's wartime production, exploring it in
connection with changes to his personal life and with the political
meanings ascribed to cubism during the war.
“A radical shift occurred in Picasso’s
work in 1914,” notes curator Simonetta Fraquelli. “Following seven years
of refining the visual language of cubism, he began to introduce
elements of naturalism to his work.” This change in his production can
be viewed against the backdrop of an unsteady cultural climate in Paris
during the First World War. Many people identified the fragmented forms
of cubism with the German enemy and therefore perceived it as
unpatriotic. This negative impression reverberated throughout Paris
during the First World War and may have been a factor in Picasso’s shift
in styles. However, Fraquelli says, “what becomes evident when looking
at Picasso’s work between 1914 and 1924, is that his two artistic
styles—cubism and neoclassicism—are not antithetical; on the contrary,
each informs the other, to the degree that the metamorphosis from one
style to the other is so natural for the artist that occasionally they
occur in the same works of art.”
Major works from the Picasso museums in Barcelona and Paris will be included in the exhibition, including
Seated Woman (1920).
Seated Woman (1920).
The exhibition also features four costumes that Picasso designed for the avant-garde ballet, Parade,
which premiered in Paris in 1917: the original Chinese Conjurer
costume and reproductions of the American Manager, French Manager, and
Horse costumes. Performed by Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, with
music by Erik Satie, story by Jean Cocteau, and the choreography of
Léonide Massine, Parade was the first cross-disciplinary
collaboration of its kind. The ballet, which tells the story of an
itinerant circus group performing a sideshow, was viewed as a
revolutionary approach to theater. Picasso was the first avant-garde
artist involved in such a production—not only designing the costumes,
but also the theater curtain and set. A watercolor and graphite sketch
of the curtain design and a pencil sketch of the Chinese Conjurer
costume are included in the exhibition. Picasso drew inspiration for his
designs from the modern world—everything from circuses and carousels to
music halls and the cinema. With Picasso’s inventive geometric costumes
and naturalistic curtain design, Parade may be the ultimate fusion of cubist and classical forms.
Picasso’s juxtaposition of figurative
and cubist techniques can be seen as an expression of artistic freedom
during a time of great conflict, and his shifts in style became a means
of not repeating, in his words, “the same vision, the same technique,
the same formula.” The works by Picasso’s contemporaries, such as
Diego Rivera’s Still Life with Bread Knife from 1915
and Matisse’s Lorette in a Red Jacket from 1917, offer further insight into the shifting cultural climate in France during this transformative period.
Diego Rivera’s Still Life with Bread Knife from 1915
and Matisse’s Lorette in a Red Jacket from 1917, offer further insight into the shifting cultural climate in France during this transformative period.
Managing curator for Picasso: The Great War, Experimentation and Change at the Barnes Foundation is Martha Lucy. Managing curator at the Columbus Museum of Art is David Stark.
Catalogue
Picasso: The Great War, Experimentation, and Change examines the work that Pablo Picasso made in Paris during the tumultuous years of World War I. Focusing on Picasso's oeuvre from 1912 to 1924, when he utilised both Cubist and classical modes in his art, this fully illustrated catalogue highlights one of the most important periods in the history of modern art. Picasso's shifts in style became a means of not repeating, in his words, 'the same vision, the same technique, the same formula.' With that approach in mind, the book also includes the work of Picasso's peers and friends, artists who were also exploring themes relevant to the difficult times in which they lived. Published to accompany a major exhibition of the same name at the Barnes Foundation and the Columbus Museum of Art, this elegantly designed book is essential reading for all those interested in Picasso's work and the dramatic and innovative period of art history during the Great War.
Catalogue
Picasso: The Great War, Experimentation, and Change examines the work that Pablo Picasso made in Paris during the tumultuous years of World War I. Focusing on Picasso's oeuvre from 1912 to 1924, when he utilised both Cubist and classical modes in his art, this fully illustrated catalogue highlights one of the most important periods in the history of modern art. Picasso's shifts in style became a means of not repeating, in his words, 'the same vision, the same technique, the same formula.' With that approach in mind, the book also includes the work of Picasso's peers and friends, artists who were also exploring themes relevant to the difficult times in which they lived. Published to accompany a major exhibition of the same name at the Barnes Foundation and the Columbus Museum of Art, this elegantly designed book is essential reading for all those interested in Picasso's work and the dramatic and innovative period of art history during the Great War.
- Examines Pablo Picasso's use of both Cubist and classical styles in his art during the tumultuous years of World War I
- Accompanies a major exhibition opening at the Barnes Foundation (February 21 to May 9, 2016) and the Columbus Museum of Art (June 10 to September 11, 2016)
- Features new scholarship from leading experts from around the world
- Includes images and discussion of costumes by Picasso for the ballet Parade (1917), and photographs by Jean Cocteau showing the artist and friends in Paris (1916)
