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8/11/2002

Picasso

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

The Last Decades

Picasso: The Last Decades surveys the astonishing achievement of Pablo Picasso between the ages of 71 and 91. More than eighty paintings, drawings and prints have been selected from public and private collections in Europe, Japan, the USA and Australia. The exhibition will be shown in Sydney only.

This last period of the artist's life was controversial. Needing neither money nor the approval of others, he did exactly as he pleased, but it was in competition with his own past achievements, hoping to attain greater focus and intensity with more spontaneity and freedom.

During his last 20 years Picasso produced more works in a multitude of media than most artists produce in a lifetime. His work in printmaking alone could gain recognition as an achievement comparable only to Rembrandt and Goya.

Picasso was determined to evolve beyond what he had done before. The effect of his late works could strike those who were unprepared for its impact as artless because of their directness; crude because of their economy of means and violent because of the sheer force of expression. However a new and younger generation found fresh inspiration in them. This exhibition includes a painting from the collection of David Hockney, a younger painter who was a fervent admirer of the ageing modern master.

Picasso died at the age of 91 in 1973. His artistic vitality was undiminished until the end. Deserted by fellow artists and friends of his own generation who pre-deceased him, isolated by his own obsessions, by the onset of deafness, and by the repercussions of his gigantic fame, it was nonetheless an heroic conclusion to an epic artist's life.

Image:
Picasso at Villa La Californie, 1957 (detail)
Photographer Lee Miller
© Lee Miller Archives, Chiddingly, England

Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery Road, The Domain
Sydney, NSW 2000
Australia

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