Picasso Portraits at NPG

Picasso, Olga 1923.  Courtesy of NPG

I had a great trip to Picasso at NPG.  I discovered that if you talk to the staff and explain you are a serious student (doing content analysis) they will let you enter and leave the exhibition (for the toilets and a drink) which is normally against the rules.  Mind you, the exhibition was busy (for a Monday afternoon - I was still able to buy a ticket for immediate entry) and not completely stuffed.

Huge exhibition.  I was sensible to set some rules for what I wanted to look at, before I went in.  My rules were to look at all the images that included women, and consider whether they were represented respectfully.  I have to admit I had a pre-conceived idea that Picasso did not respect women!  He had 5 long term female partners, starting with Olga, and finishing with Jacqueline, plus countless affairs.

I did not know that he did not work to commission.  So this would have impacted on how respectful he needed to be!  I had wondered how he made his living, but not working to commission, does not mean he did not sell work.  He portrayed friends, family and lovers - mostly single portraits in traditional poses and formats.  He included distortion, and exaggeration - typical in caricature, ironic humour and intense seriousness.

He used a wide range of media - charcoal, ink, oil paint, pencil, lithograph, bronze 3D sculpture, metal sheet sculpture, and photographs.  Mostly single posed people but some groups.  His style changed over time but he was never devoted solely to one style.  He used realism, cubism, symbolism, blue periods, and rose periods.

The cafe had eclairs with blue icing and blue sparkles at one end - looked like a blue penis!!

The images of his childen are quite loving and show fun, enjoyment and admiration in their company.  He loved drawing with them.  The audio tape referred to him trying to draw like them, because he had been strictly schooled in drawing by his father, and never had the chance to draw like a child, when he was a child.

Well worth going to.  I would probably go a second time, if anyone else wanted to go.  Notes of my content analysis later.  Gut feel on the outcome of my unconsidered content analysis is that he was less disrespectful to women than I had thought - but this makes me wonder whether the curators have de-selected the worse images.  There was one that I saw in Tate some time ago, where he painted one of his lovers with a large green vagina - and apparently it was done when he was impotent!  I don't like a lot of his work about women, but it is very interesting.