Pioneering Picasso devoted his life to creative innovation
Picasso for Asia – A Conversation
Wall-sized projections of a 1949 documentary titled Visit to Picasso by the Belgian filmmaker Paul Haesaerts. The camera captures Picasso’s creative process by filming him from behind a glass pane.
Pablo Picasso inspired artists and art movements
Pablo Picasso conveyed experiences of loss, beauty, love, and conflict in ways that captured the world’s attention. Whether painting, sculpting, creating ceramics, or printmaking, his innovations expanded the definition of great art and inspired numerous artists and art movements.
Picasso for Asia – A Conversation, now on display at the M+ Museum, features over 60 Picasso masterpieces from the Musée national Picasso-Paris, alongside approximately 130 works by thirty Asian and Asian diasporic artists.
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Born in Spain, Picasso (1881-1973) was the son of Jose Ruiz Blasco and María Picasso Lopez. His father was a painter, art teacher and curator.
Jose Ruiz Blasco, Father of Artist
Jose Ruiz Blasco, Father of Artist painted when Picasso was thirteen, evidenced his ability to paint realistically.
Jose Rujiz Blasco, Father of the Artist, 1895, Oil on canvas, Pablo Picasso
He continued his formal art education until 1900, supplementing it with frequent visits to museums to examine the works of Spanish masters, including El Greco, Diego Velázquez, and Francisco Goya.
He regularly travelled between Spain and Paris, where he continued to visit museums but became more influenced by the art scene in Paris.
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Around 1901, he began using his mother’s surname for his artistic career because it was more unique than his father’s.
Blue Period (1901-1904)
In 1901, Picasso’s best friend and fellow artist, Carles Casagemas, committed suicide. At that point, Picasso was impoverished and depressed, which led to his Blue Period (1901-1904), during which he portrayed themes of poverty, melancholy, and isolation through the use of shades of blue.
Portrait of a Man, 1902–1903, Oil on canvas, Pablo Picasso
However, from his loss came a breakthrough: Portrait of a Man. Today, this portrait of a bearded young man lost in thought resonates with people emotionally, but it did not resonate with the art-buying public of the time.
Rose Period (1904-1906)
Picasso’s ability to capture truthful emotions became financially viable as he transitioned into his Rose Period (1904-1906).
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After meeting Fernande Olivier, his first muse, he shifted to warmer tones of pink and orange, featuring subjects such as acrobats, harlequins, and other circus performers.
Young Picasso and His Sister
The warmth and happiness in his life were reflected in the lighter, more optimistic tones of his paintings.
Yan Pei-Ming took obvious inspiration from Picasso’s Rose Period in his pair of paintings, Young Picasso and His Sister, from photos of seven-year-old Picasso and his sister.
Young Picasso and His Sister – Permanent Rose, 2024, Oil on canvas, Yan Pei-Ming
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), held by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, is one of Picasso’s most famous paintings.
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However, it was not immediately recognised as a masterpiece. It’s a depiction of five distorted prostitutes staring confrontationally at the viewer, challenging the traditional passive role of female nudes in art. Even his friends found it unsettling, so he hid it in his studio until 1916.
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon study
MoMA does not lend out Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Still, this exhibition does feature Bust, a study for the masterpiece painted during his African-influenced Period (1907-1909), which was inspired by masks and sculptures from ancient Iberia, Africa, and Oceania. This study is of added interest due to the evidence Picasso painted over another painting that did not sell.
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Fernande Olivier was not only Picasso’s inspiration during his Rose Period, but she was also an early subject for his Cubist paintings.
Bust (Study for Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon), 1907, Oil on canvas, Pablo Picasso
Cubism revolutionised modern art; Georges Braque (1882-1963) and Picasso invented Cubism between 1907 and 1912.
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Cubism reconstructs reality by presenting multiple perspectives in a single image, thereby eliminating traditional perspectives and realistic depictions. This is done by breaking down objects into fragmented forms and reassembling them.
Gunpowder Drawing No. 8-A5, 1988, Gunpowder and acrylic on canvas, Cai Guo-Qiang
Picasso’s style evolved over the years from a dark grey palette to vibrant colours. Other modern artists took up the fundamentals of Cubism.
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Echoing Picasso’s willingness to experiment with perspective, Cai Guo-Qiang (b.1957) experiments with exploding fireworks on canvas to create gunpowder paintings that use destructive forces to create artwork.
1920s Neoclassical Period
Reading the Letter is a reminder of Picasso’s relentless willingness to reinvent himself. This return to a classical form, with a focus on clear lines and defined shapes, is characteristic of his short-lived early 1920s Neoclassical Period.
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By the late 1920s, he moved on to Surrealism, an art form that rejects logic and prioritises the subconscious mind to liberate creativity.
Reading the Letter, 1921, Oil on canvas, Pablo Picasso
Although he never formally joined the Surrealist movement, paintings such as The Acrobat and sculptures like Bust of a Woman demonstrate his versatility.
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The Surrealist influence on Isamu Noguchi’s (1904-1988) Strange Bird – reflecting his disillusionment after being interned during the Second World War – is undeniable.
Strange Bird, (1945/1971), Isamu Noguchi
Complex is the only way to describe Picasso’s relationship with women, as his paintings often express more about his own feelings, desires, and anxieties, than an accurate representation of these women.
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The exhibition displays paintings of Marie-Therese Walter (1909-1977), mother of his daughter Maya, Dora Maar (1907-1997), who photographed Picasso painting Guernica; Nusch Eluard (1906-1946), a famous surrealist model, and Jacqueline Roque (1926-1986), Picasso’s second wife and final partner.
Seated Woman with Arms Crossed (Marie-Therese Walter), 1937, Oil on canvas, Portrait of Dora Maar, 1937, Oil on canvas, Portrait of Nusch Eluard, 1937, Oil on canvas, Head of a Woman (Jacqueline Roque), 1957, Paint on wood, Pablo Picasso
Likewise, Zeng Fanzhi’s homage to Picasso in the same exhibition room says more about Zeng Fanzhi than it does about Picasso.
Picasso, 2011, Oil on canvas, Zeng Fanzhi
Part of the exhibition features wall-sized projections of a 1949 documentary titled Visit to Picasso by the Belgian filmmaker Paul Haesaerts. The camera captures Picasso’s creative process by filming him from behind a glass pane.
Picasso in his 90s
Picasso began working with clay later in his career. In collaboration with the Madoura Pottery workshop in Vallauris, France, he explored and mastered various techniques, including painting, engraving, and sculpting clay, producing a vast number of ceramic pieces, such as plates, bowls, vases, and sculptures.
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As he aged, Picasso remained prolific and continued to experiment relentlessly. By the time he was in his nineties, his brushstrokes had become larger and looser, yet he maintained an urgency to innovate and remain relevant.
Plate with Knife, Fork, Apple Cut in two and Peel, 1947-48, White clay Owl with a Man’s Head (Carnival Couple), 1951-53, White clay Owl with a Woman’s Head (Carnival Couple), 1951-53, White clay Rectangular Dish with Sardines, 1947-48, White clay, Pablo Picasso
He stayed connected to the world through 1970s French television, which was becoming more explicit, as did his paintings.
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Before the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), Picasso was not political. But a 1937 bombing of the town of Guernica by Nazi Germany acting in support of General Francisco Franco that targeted civilians deeply affected him.
The Old Man, 1930, Oil on Canvas, Pablo Picasso
He became very anti-Franco and raised money selling postcards of his artwork to support the Civil War initiative.
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In 1937, he painted another masterpiece, Guernica. Guernica is almost eight meters long and five meters high, painted with all of Picasso’s passion and technique.
Horse Head, sketch for Guernica, 1937, Oil on canvas, Pablo Picasso
The Queen Sofía Museum in Madrid, Spain, is home to the Picasso masterpiece. Horse Head, a study for Guernica is on display in this exhibition to hint of the power of the original.
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As the Spanish War devolved into World War 2, Picasso lived in Nazi-occupied France. When France was finally liberated in 1944, he joined the French Communist Party in the hope that this form of government could offer world peace.
Bust of a Woman, bronze, 1931, Pablo Picasso
His contribution to the peace efforts was the design of doves to be used in promoting annual World Peace Congresses.
Picasso’s doves
The final section of the exhibition draws attention to Picasso’s studies of a broad range of periods and styles from Western art history, encompassing Etruscan, Greek, and Roman antiquities, as well as the Renaissance, Baroque period, and Post-Impressionism.
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He would create multiple renditions incorporating his own flair and experimenting.
The Korean War prompted another painting to protest the suffering of innocents brought about by the imbalance of military technology.
Massacre in Korea, 1951, Oil on plywood – a protest the suffering of innocents brought about by military technology, Pablo Picasso
Massacre in Korea was created to be rendered into a large mural. Regrettably, the Communist Party never accepted it because it was too abstract in identifying the victims and perpetrators, so it did not work as propaganda. As part of the conversation with Asian artists, M+ commissioned British-Japanese artist Simon Fujiwara to respond to Picasso’s Massacre in Korea.
Who vs Who vs Who? (A Picture of a Massacre), Simon Fujiwara, 2024 Acrylic, charcoal, and pastel on canvas
After viewing the original, Fujiwara was disappointed at the small scale, having previously only known it from pictures.
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For his response, Who vs Who vs Who? (A Picture of a Massacre), He doubled the size and modernised the technology, transitioning from black and white to colour, and added drones and mobile phones.
Portrait of Dora Maar, 1937, Oil on canvas, Pablo Picasso
There is also a reference to Guernica, with the victims seeming to plead with the perpetrators to remember the lessons of history.
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It can also be seen as a critique of our current society’s tendency to find fault, make quick judgments, and prefer simple solutions.
Woman’s Head (Fernande), 1909-1910, Oil on canvas, Pablo Picasso
In a 1923 interview with Marius de Zayas for an article in The Arts, Picasso summarised his philosophy of art “We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand.”
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Only as a child did Picasso paint realistically; as an adult, he convincingly portrayed truth in abstract representations of loss, beauty, love, and conflict.
The Sculptor, 1931, Oil on Plywood, Pablo Picasso
He expanded the ways to create art and inspired generations of artists, and in so doing, was a great artist.
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Picasso for Asia – A Conversation provides ample opportunity to appreciate the colossal innovations of this icon of art history and the contemporary works of artists he inspired.
Text Martin Wray and photos Cammy Yiu
