The sample Picasso: printmakerwhich can be seen in the prestigious London museum until March 30, 2025, brings together almost a hundred engravings.
“People are more familiar with his paintings, so we really wanted to show that printmaking is a really important creative area of his work and that he achieved great things in this field,” exhibition curator Catherine Daunt told AFP. curator of modern and contemporary prints at the British Museum.
The exhibition, which brings together works made from 1904, after Picasso’s arrival in Paris, until 1971, is the most extensive dedicated to the artist to date in the museum, with 97 of the 553 engravings by the Andalusian genius that the art gallery has. .
“Picasso’s printmaking is an area of his work that many people won’t have seen in such detail before,” says Daunt.
Without experience or preparation, Picasso made his first engraving, The leftyin 1899, when he was 17 years old, where he shows a picador.
In 1904 he made the etching Frugal foodwhich opens the British Museum exhibition, a great masterpiece of its first stage.
Different variants of engraving
The exhibition follows Picasso’s evolution throughout his career, delving into almost all variants of engraving, such as etching, drypoint, lithography, linoleum and aquatint, as an example of his continuous process of artistic change.
“We analyzed his entire career and different periods of his engraving. We began by looking at his first works in Paris, when he was interested in the people around him, representing scenes of poverty, acrobats, street artists. Then he became interested in classical art, as in the Vollard Suite, a series of 100 engravings that he made between 1930 and 1937,” explains Daunt.
In that Vollard Suite, made for the art dealer Ambroise Vollard, there are references to the Spanish Civil War, such as the etching ‘The Dream and Lie of Franco’, present in the exhibition.
“Later we see his interest in lithography and linoleum engraving, and finally the prints he made when he was at the end of his life, when he was reflecting on his life and thinking about his legacy. So we see a lot of different elements of Picasso in this exposure,” says Daunt.
In Picasso’s role as an engraver, one can appreciate the insistence on themes linked to the classical literary tradition.
“A personal diary”
It also recurrently incorporates the theme of the painter and the model or the myth of the Minotaur.
“His prints are like a personal diary, as he always included elements from his own life. We learn a lot about his life from them. We see the people who meant a lot to him, his wives and lovers. We see a reflection of his emotions, his experiences, the artists who inspired him. He was a very inventive and creative engraver,” explains Daunt.
The exhibition includes 28 engravings from the 347 Suite series, which Picasso made between March 16 and October 8, 1968, being one of the artist’s most important series in this aspect.
These 347 engravings, donated in their entirety in 2014 to the British Museum by Hamish Parker, were made in 1968, when he was 86 years old.
In that Suite 347 he includes references to the French writer Honoré de Balzac, the painters Rembrandt and El Greco, as well as his own family, such as parents, spouses or lovers.
The series reflects Picasso’s vast inspiration, from those great masters to the bullfighting and flamenco universe, including Greco-Roman mythology and the Mediterranean landscape.
There are also references to daily life or historical figures, such as the French president Charles De Gaulle, in an engraving related to the May 68 revolts.
“In printmaking, Picasso was able to tell stories and really explore a theme. He often made prints in series. And that allowed him to deeply explore an idea, something he couldn’t necessarily do as quickly in painting,” summarizes Daunt.
