Pablo Picasso Graphics

June 17 - July 22, 2011


"Many themes, well known and obscure, run through the imposing oeuvre of Pablo Picasso. A complex man, complex thinker, and complex image-maker who produced art for three-quarters of a century, Picasso had the mind and the time to speak of much of the world in his work. But if he returned to any one thing over and over again, if any one subject was the touchstone for his artistic output, it was the opposite sex. Picasso the artist – and Picasso the man – was addicted to women.

This addiction has been the preoccupation of much writing on Picasso; by now, it has become common parlance to speak of his monumental stylistic changes as reflective of, even sparked by, the monumental changes in his love life. Historians have determined direct correspondence between the commencements of new love affairs with distinct changes in the artist's style. Jacqueline Roque, Francoise Gilot, Dora Maar, Marie-Therese Walter, Olga Koklova, Eva Gouel, Fernande Olivier, right back to his rose-period model and lover Madeleine, each spurred the investigation and development of a new manner, a new approach, a new range of subject matter, and/or the employment of a new medium.

Picasso certainly noted early on that the human figure, and the female figure in particular, was western art's central image. Thus, it became Picasso's – and he maintained a focus on the female at a time when other progressive painters were as likely as not to concentrate on the object, the landscape, or pure form." (Credit P.Frank)