An overview of Picasso's graphic works and drawings from the years 1901 until 1972. Mainly figurative in content the works show human relationships as an area of tension between man and woman or artist and model. Another focus lies on portraits and nudes as well as bullfighting scenes and minotauromachias.
We are pleased to announce the exhibition Pablo Picasso – drawings and graphic works.
With 36 major works on paper the exhibition offers an overview of the graphic and printed
work of one of the most outstanding figures in the history of art and highlights eight decades
of Picasso’s work. In their richness of ideas and variety of forms these works seem as
exuberant as his paintings and demonstrate the remarkable originality of this part of his
oeuvre.
The chronological focus of the exhibition lies on the 1930s
and 1960s. There are 10 works from the Suite Vollard which
dates from the thirties. Initiated by Parisian art dealer
Ambroise Vollard this centesimal series of etchings is
regarded as Picasso’s main work in printmaking. Many of
these etchings deal with the relationship between man and
woman, which is illustrated in numerous variations. Other
motifs show themes like “artist and model” or scenes with
mythological figures such as fauns or Minotaurs, as in Faune
dévoilant une dormeuse (Faun unveiling a sleeping woman)
from 1936/39. The late works from the 1960s are
characterized by a great freedom in formal aspects and a
playful, associative handling of subject and representation.
In the exhibition an outstanding series of enigmatically
entitled etchings dated 1968/69 shows miraculous scenes
with musketeers, acrobats and circus riders.
In addition to these main focuses the show is completed by single works which comprise the
period from 1901 to 1971 and thus exemplarily illustrate Picasso’s entire lifework. Among these
are early works such as Le divan (The divan) from 1901, works from the neoclassical period,
portraits from the 1940s and 50s and outstanding drawings like Combat de Centaures
(Fighting Centaurs) from 1959 or Le peintre (The painter) from 1964, a lithograph to which he
added gouache and ink. Picasso proves to be an artist who constantly varies and develops
his oeuvre, an inventive virtuoso, both serious and humorous, who radically changed our
perception of art.
An expansion of the gallery’s program is associated with the exhibition. Along with the
represented artists, who remain central to the gallery’s program, upstairs berlin will also show
positions of 20th century art in the future.
A catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition.
For further information please contact Aeneas Bastian by phone at
+49-(0)30-209 157 90 or by email at press@upstairs-berlin.com.
Image: Pablo Picasso, Faune dévoilant une dormeuse,1936
Succession Picasso / VG BILD-KUNST Bonn, 2011
Opening reception Friday, January 282011, 6 – 8 pm
Upstairs berlin
Zimmerstrasse 90/91, staircase A
open Wednesday to Friday from 11 am to 6 pm and Saturday from 11 am to
4 pm as well as by appointment.