Picasso's Drawings, 1890–1921: Reinventing Tradition
October 4, 2011, through January 8, 2012

Works in the Exhibition

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Made by Picasso at the age of nine, this drawing was based on a statuette in the hallway of his family's apartment house. The flourish of his signature — P. Ruiz Picasso — indicates the pride he took in his work. This is among the earliest works preserved by Picasso's parents.

In the bullfighting scene, the natural verve of the eleven-year-old draftsman comes to the fore. With the sheet turned upside-down, he applied himself diligently to the lessons of naturalistic representation. Both subjects are associated with his father.

Made at the age of fifteen as an advanced student in Barcelona's academy, this work displays Picasso's mastery of naturalistic representation in a drawing after a plaster cast of a figure from the Parthenon. Through such academic exercises, he familiarized himself with the principles of classical art while perfecting his technique.

From casts of sculpture, Picasso progressed to the live model. Here Picasso captures the specific qualities of his subject. The human figure would remain Picasso's primary subject throughout his life.

Don José Ruiz Blasco, Picasso's father and first teacher, was also his frequent model. By limiting his palette to shades of red, the adolescent intensifies the expression in this depiction of his tall, fair-haired
father — his physical opposite.

The flatness of form, mixed media, and spontaneity of execution of this drawing show Picasso responding to new currents in the graphic arts and the thriving Catalan movement of Modernisme. One of a large cycle of drawings of Barcelona's bohemian community, this work was shown in 1900 at the local tavern Els Quatre Gats, marking Picasso's public debut as an artist.

This scene of old Castilian life was made in Spain after Picasso's first trip to Paris. The man in the foreground with a crook-necked cane, wearing a typical Castilian mantle, may be a shepherd. It formed part of Picasso's first appearance in an exhibition in Paris in 1901 at the Vollard gallery.

Allusions to self-portraits in the Louvre by Poussin and Delacroix underlie this image, while in technique the emphatic strokes of black chalk around the head echo portrait drawings by Van Gogh. This work conveys a sense of a young artist confronting a world of expanded horizons.

Hands feature prominently in Picasso's early work, and he frequently made studies and sketches of them to test the expressive potential of different gestures and anatomical manipulations. Here he focuses on conveying motion and light, moving his loaded brush rapidly across the sheet.

The hieratic form of the mother recalls Gothic and Romanesque statuary, while the method of surrounding areas of glowing color with dark outlines is reminiscent of cloisonné or stained glass.

In this pastel, Picasso balances strong geometric shapes and areas of light and dark, while the soft, sketchy application of chalk unifies the composition. Here, as in the previous work, the pervasive blue tonality
underlies the sense of alienation implicit in the scene.

In both subject and method of drawing Picasso pays tribute to the work of Paul Gauguin. Upon hearing of Gauguin's death in 1903 — several months after he had made the drawing — he added the inscription, choosing to sign his name Paul (rather than Pablo) in honor of the older artist.

In this study for one of Picasso's first masterpieces, La Vie, the artist and his lover Germaine stand naked in a studio. With great economy of means, Picasso conveys the volume of their bodies through outline and with a few strokes of the pen captures the expression of the huddled figures in the painting on the easel in the background.

In this study for a gouache, Picasso works out the composition of the mother and child, while trying out various positions for the hands. The drawing as a whole has an aesthetic balance and completeness.

In this early work depicting a studio model, Picasso chose a large format characteristic of a formal portrait. However, his loose application of
gouache and use of unprimed cardboard — a cheap, unconventional support he favored at this time — give this work the freshness of a sketch.

Here Picasso envisions the demise of the commedia dell'arte character Harlequin, identified by the diamond pattern of his costume. He lies with his hands in prayer, attended by mourners, recalling Renaissance depictions of Christ's entombment as well as the sculpted effigies of medieval sarcophagi. For the dog, the brown cardboard support suffices
as the color of his hide.

In this study for an unrealized painting, emphatic contour lines establish the conjoined form of horse and rider, with the horse represented as negative space. The anterior view of the figure on horseback has a long
history in art, from the Renaissance to Degas.

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Major funding for the presentation in New York is provided by Bill and Donna Acquavella, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and the late Melvin R. Seiden.

Additional support is generously provided by Walter and Vera Eberstadt, Agnes Gund, the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation, the Thaw Charitable Trust, Mr. and Mrs. Julio Mario Santo Domingo, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The exhibition is also supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

The accompanying catalogue has been underwritten by the Center for Spain in America and The Christian Humann Foundation.

* Reproduction, including downloading of Pablo Picasso works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.