Pablo Picasso — Beyond Impressionism

Life

Pablo Picasso was born on October 25, 1881, in Málaga, in the south of Spain. His father, José Ruiz y Blasco, was an art teacher and painter who recognized his son's prodigious gift early on. The family moved to A Coruña in 1891 and to Barcelona in 1895, where Picasso was extraordinary enough to pass the entrance examination for the Barcelona School of Fine Arts (La Llotja) at a very young age. In 1897 he went to the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, but unable to bear its academic instruction, he soon stopped attending. His life changed with his first trip to Paris in 1900. Then, in February 1901, his close friend and fellow painter Carlos Casagemas, despairing over an unrequited love, took his own life with a pistol — an event that plunged the young Picasso into a deep depression. Under the shadow of this death, the 'Blue Period' (1901–1904) was born. In an all-pervading blue, he painted society's margins: the poor, the blind, prostitutes, prisoners. In 1904 he settled into the 'Bateau-Lavoir' (the Laundry Boat) in Montmartre, Paris, and after meeting Fernande Olivier his palette warmed into the 'Rose Period' (1904–1906). Clowns and acrobats appear, and patrons such as the Stein siblings, Gertrude and Leo, came into his life — and the Detroit show's 'Head of a Harlequin' (1905) is itself a product of this Rose Period. In 1907 he painted 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,' the work that split art history in two. Under the influence of African and Iberian masks, he broke the women's faces apart like masks, opening the door to Cubism; together with Georges Braque he invented Analytic Cubism (c. 1909–1912) and Synthetic Cubism (c. 1912–1919, with collage and papier collé). The two later recalled being like "mountaineers roped together." After the First World War, in 1918 he married the ballerina Olga Khokhlova, and in the 1920s he turned to a Neoclassicism of classical figures, then passed through Surrealism, unfurling a feast of curves modeled on Marie-Thérèse Walter, the lover he met in 1927 (the DIA's 'Girl Reading,' 1938, is adjacent to this strain). In 1937, enraged by the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, he completed the vast black-and-white mural 'Guernica,' the high point of twentieth-century anti-war art. Ranging across painting, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, and stage design throughout his life, he left behind an immense body of work, and died at the age of 91 on April 8, 1973, in Mougins, France.

Style & Innovation

Picasso's revolution can be summed up in a single sentence — he broke the roughly 500-year-old promise, held since the Renaissance, that "we see things from a single point of view." Before Cubism, a painting was a window: the painter stood in one spot and honestly transcribed a single moment seen with one eye. Picasso and Braque abolished this single viewpoint. They broke an object into fragments seen simultaneously from the front, the side, and above, and layered them onto one surface (Analytic Cubism). Then they invented collage and papier collé, pasting newspaper, wallpaper, and sheet music onto the canvas to bring 'the very fragments of reality' onto the picture plane instead of a 'represented reality' (Synthetic Cubism). This was a declaration that a painting is not a mirror reflecting the world but an object made unto itself — and from here all of abstract and modern art branched off. In this exhibition's seven-section narrative, Picasso is the protagonist of the sixth section, 'Cubism,' charged with taking the decisive step of dismantling form after Matisse (Section 5, Fauvism = the liberation of color) had set color free. In the flow from Courbet's Realism (1) → the light of Impressionism (2) → the emotion and viewpoint of Post-Impressionism (3) → Symbolism (4) → the color of Matisse (5) → Picasso's dismantling of form (6) → Expressionism and abstraction (7), Picasso is the most radical turning point. One thing worth noting: this exhibition allots six works to Picasso alone, showing the very history of his stylistic transformations (Rose Period 1905 → Cubism 1909 and 1915 → Neoclassicism 1923 → late works 1938 and 1940). In other words, visitors can follow not only 'the inventor of Cubism' but the entire trajectory of a man who tirelessly broke himself apart and remade himself throughout his life, all within a single room. The specific spatial staging of the Seoul show can be experienced firsthand at the gallery.

Technique

Over more than seventy years Picasso ceaselessly changed his technique, so it is impossible to define him by any 'single brushstroke.' Yet by following the works in this exhibition you can trace that change with your own eyes. In an early work like the Rose Period's 'Head of a Harlequin' (1905), he sheds the cold monochrome of the Blue Period as warm pinks and ochres enter, and the forms are still simplified with clear, distinct outlines — note how flat the planes are and how sharp the contours, the very opposite of Impressionism's busy impasto. In his Cubist phase (1909, 1915), he splits the subject into small facets in a restrained palette of browns and grays, and the surface takes on a shallow, almost relief-like spatial depth. In the late 'Girl Reading' (1938), by contrast, crisp outlines divide planes of purple, blue, and green, and a frontal face and a profile coexist within a single head. The key way to look is to stand before the canvas and identify, one by one, 'from which angle is this nose, this eye, this mouth seen?' The most dramatic fact uncovered by conservation science centers on the Blue Period: with no money, Picasso often reused his canvases. When the Phillips Collection's 'The Blue Room' (1901) in Washington was analyzed by X-ray and infrared reflectography in 2014, the portrait of a man in a bow tie was revealed beneath the painting, and beneath the Cleveland Museum of Art's 'La Vie' as well, an earlier composition and several rounds of revision (pentimenti) were confirmed. So when standing before a Picasso, look closely at the fine cracks in the surface (craquelure), the other color layers showing through at the edges, and inconsistencies in the brushwork, and you can imagine another painting sleeping beneath.

Key Works

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Girl Reading
1938
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Girl Reading · Girl ReadingIn this showDIA collection
1938 · Oil on canvas · Detroit Institute of Arts (currently on tour in Rome and Seoul) · Sources

Why it matters

Repeatedly singled out as a signature Picasso by the Seoul press, and one of the six Picassos specified in the Rome touring-exhibition materials, this is a work on view in the current show. Made the very year after he painted Guernica (1937), it shows the graphic intensity of his late work. The DIA explains that 'the book the girl holds is a symbol of knowledge, silence, and contemplation — an act of resistance against an age of violence and chaos.'

👁 What to look for

Planes of purple and blue divided by crisp outlines, rosy cheeks and jet-black hair. The 'multiple-viewpoint' treatment in which a frontal face and a profile coexist within a single head. The manicured hand resting on the book, the blouse patterned in purple and blue, the metal chair oddly slung over the shoulder, the bare white room. Follow the flat yet decorative composition and identify, one by one, 'from which angle is each feature seen?' The model is commonly identified as his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter.

Backstory

In 1938 Picasso was caught in a tangled relationship between Marie-Thérèse Walter and Dora Maar (the Korean press described it as a 'love triangle in transition'), and he produced several portraits drawing on both women. This work passed through the New York dealer J. K. Thannhauser (Justin K. Thannhauser) and was purchased on January 26, 1957, by Josephine F. Ford — Henry Ford's granddaughter and a member of the Detroit automobile dynasty. In 2005 it was given to the DIA from her estate, together with works by Picasso, Matisse, and Renoir worth roughly $15 million (credit line 'Gift of the Josephine F. Ford Estate,' accession no. 2005.60).

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Head of a Harlequin
1905
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Head of a Harlequin · Head of a HarlequinIn this showDIA collection
1905 · Oil on canvas · Detroit Institute of Arts (currently on tour in Rome and Seoul) · Sources

Why it matters

One of the six Picassos specified in the Rome touring-exhibition materials, this work represents the 'Rose Period' (1904–1906) that emerged from the melancholy Blue Period. With the clown and the acrobat — the quintessential subjects of the Rose Period — it marks the turning point that shows how a genius closed his color into coldness and then reopened it into warmth. It is one of the signature masterpieces of the collection the DIA holds through the Bequest of Robert Hudson Tannahill (died 1969; Bequest of Robert H. Tannahill, accession no. 70.191), the foundation of its modern collection.

👁 What to look for

The warm pinks and ochres that entered as the cold blue of the Blue Period receded. The harlequin's characteristically wistful expression and simplified forms. The canvas is small, but the outlines are crisp and the planes flat — feel the contrast with Impressionism's thick, busy brushwork.

Backstory

During the Rose Period Picasso often visited the Cirque Medrano in Montmartre, capturing clowns and acrobats on canvas. The harlequin was an alter-ego character with whom Picasso identified all his life, a dual being holding joy and melancholy at once. This painting passed through the collection of Mme. Jacques Doucet in Paris before being acquired by the Jacques Seligmann gallery in New York in 1937, and purchased by Robert Hudson Tannahill in 1939. Tannahill, a collector from the Detroit department-store (Hudson's) family, bequeathed 557 works to the DIA upon his death in 1969 — by Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Degas, Seurat, Matisse, Picasso, and others — forming the backbone of this exhibition's modern collection.

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Melancholy Woman
1902
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Melancholy Woman · Melancholy WomanDIA collection
1902 · Oil on canvas · Detroit Institute of Arts · Sources

Why it matters

A DIA masterpiece representing Picasso's Blue Period (1901–1904) (accession no. 70.190, Tannahill Bequest). However, since it is not on the list of six works in the Rome tour (1905, 1909, 1915, 1923, 1938, 1940), it does not appear to be among the works in this 52-piece touring exhibition. Even so, it is included here for reference as a key work for understanding the DIA's Picasso Blue Period.

👁 What to look for

(This work belongs to the DIA's permanent collection and does not appear to be included in this tour.) An all-blue monochrome surface, flat and uniform with almost no impasto. The heavy blue outlines that enclose the figure and the forms elongated in an El Greco-like manner. The sunken eyes, the downcast gaze, and the closed triangular composition formed by the clasped hands.

Backstory

The Blue Period was triggered by the pistol suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas in 1901. Picasso visited the Saint-Lazare women's prison/hospital in Paris and observed the incarcerated women (many of them prostitutes, some suffering from illness), and that despair and compassion became the direct source of the Blue Period's series of women. Tannahill purchased it relatively early and bequeathed it to the DIA in 1970.

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Seated Woman
1940
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Seated Woman · Seated WomanLikely in showDIA collection
1940 · Oil on canvas · Detroit Institute of Arts (currently a candidate for the Rome–Seoul tour) · Sources

Why it matters

One of the six Picassos specified in the Rome touring-exhibition materials, it is a strong candidate for inclusion in this show. A late portrait made just after Guernica (1937), it condenses the graphic, expressive intensity of Guernica into a small portrait. As another portrait of a woman from the same period as Girl Reading (1938), its distortion of form is even more violent.

👁 What to look for

(Held by the DIA, known under accession no. 57149.) The sharply fragmented face, the head joining frontal and profile views as if colliding, and the color set against strong outlines. Feel the passion of Picasso's characteristic 'distorted portrait of a woman' from the late 1930s into the early 1940s.

Backstory

1940 was the year the Nazis occupied Paris, and Picasso remained in occupied Paris and continued to work. The portraits of women from this period take lovers such as Dora Maar as models, but the anxiety and tension of the times surface in the distortion of form. The specific model and circumstances of this work's making vary from source to source.

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Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
1907
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Les Demoiselles d'Avignon · Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
1907 · Oil on canvas · Museum of Modern Art, New York (for reference; not in this exhibition) · Sources

Why it matters

Not in this exhibition, but a work you must know to understand Picasso — the one that 'split art history in two.' Under the influence of African and Iberian masks, he broke the women's faces apart and opened the door to Cubism. Holding this work in mind among the Rose Period and Cubist pieces in the gallery, you can gauge just how abrupt Picasso's leap was between 1905 and 1915.

👁 What to look for

(Held by MoMA in New York; not in this exhibition.) The mask-like faces of the five women, the broken space, the collapse of the single viewpoint. You cannot see it in the show, but it makes for a rewarding comparison through reproductions.

Backstory

When it was unveiled, even fellow painters were shocked, and Matisse is said to have been furious. The 'Avignon' of the title refers not to the French city but, according to the now widely accepted theory, to a street of brothels in Barcelona (Carrer d'Avinyó).

Behind the Canvas

01The exhibition allotted six works to Picasso alone

This Detroit show devotes six works to Picasso — unusual for a single artist — to present the very history of his stylistic transformation as one continuous flow: Rose Period (Head of a Harlequin, 1905) → Cubism (Portrait of Manuel Pallarés, 1909; Bottle of Anís del Mono, 1915) → Neoclassicism (Woman in an Armchair, 1923) → late works (Girl Reading, 1938; Seated Woman, 1940). In a single room you can follow how many times one man overhauled himself across his life (the list of six works is based on the Rome touring-exhibition materials; the final lineup for Seoul can be confirmed in the gallery catalogue).

02When he painted 'Girl Reading,' he was between two women

In 1938 Picasso was caught in a tangled relationship between Marie-Thérèse Walter and Dora Maar, which the Korean press introduced by likening it to a 'love triangle in transition.' The DIA explains the book the girl holds as 'a symbol of knowledge, silence, and contemplation, an act of resistance against an age of violence and chaos' — which dovetails with the fact that the work was made just after Guernica.

03The Blue Period was a color born of 'poverty'

During the Blue Period Picasso was poor enough to worry about his next meal, and an anecdote tells of him burning his own drawings for heat in a cold garret. The monochrome technique of thinning out a single blue (in the Prussian-blue family) was, in part, a choice forced by poverty (some anecdotes have hardened into legend through later recollections).

04Another painting hidden beneath the surface

Because he reused canvases for lack of money, another painting often hides beneath Blue Period works. When the Phillips Collection's 'The Blue Room' (1901) in Washington was analyzed by X-ray and infrared in 2014, the portrait of a man in a bow tie was revealed, and beneath Cleveland's 'La Vie' an earlier composition was confirmed as well.

05With Braque, 'mountaineers roped together'

While inventing Cubism around 1908–1912, Picasso and Braque visited each other's studios almost daily, working together so closely that it was hard even to tell who did what first. Braque later recalled that the two were like 'mountaineers roped together on the same line,' and they refrained from signing their works, so that there were periods when it was difficult to tell their canvases apart.

What to check in person

The six Picassos in this exhibition should be read as 'one artist's history of transformation.' If you plot your route in chronological order, from Head of a Harlequin (1905, Rose Period) to Girl Reading (1938) and Seated Woman (1940), the 35-year trajectory of a genius closing and reopening his color and breaking form apart comes into view at a glance.
Before the Rose Period's 'Head of a Harlequin' (1905), look for the warm pinks and ochres. The very opposite of Impressionism's thick, busy impasto, the outlines are crisp and the planes flat — feel that this is a picture deliberately positioned against the painters of light.
In the late 'Girl Reading' (1938), seek out 'two viewpoints within one face.' Check whether a frontal face and a profile coexist in a single head, and identify one by one from which angle the nose, eyes, and mouth are seen. This is how Cubism dissolved into the late portraits.
Look at the relationship between outline and color plane. The late Picasso divides planes of purple, blue, and green with crisp black outlines. Watch with the flow in mind — after Matisse (Section 5) sets color free, Picasso rearranges that color into 'fragments of form' — and the exhibition's narrative comes alive.
Examine the surface cracks (craquelure) and the color layers at the edges up close, and imagine the traces of canvas reuse and revision. The earlier the work, the more likely another painting sleeps beneath the surface.
Plan your route by pairing Matisse (Section 5) and Picasso (Section 6). Within the exhibition's narrative — the liberation of color (Matisse) followed by the dismantling of form (Picasso) — you can feel how these two rivals divided twentieth-century art between them.
If the Blue Period's 'Melancholy Woman' (1902) comes to mind from the permanent collection (it may not be in this tour), compare it with the 1905 Head of a Harlequin on view and gauge how, in just three years, the color shifted from cold to warm.

Connections

In this exhibition Picasso is the crucial link connecting Section 5's Matisse (the liberation of color) and Section 6's Cubism. If Matisse set color freely loose, Picasso dismantled form, and the two were lifelong rivals and the colleagues who understood each other most deeply (Matisse's shock at seeing 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' is famous). Cubism was a joint invention with Braque, and Cubist works such as Picasso's 'Portrait of Manuel Pallarés' (1909) and 'Bottle of Anís del Mono' (1915) appear alongside it in the Rome tour. Chronologically, Picasso's Blue Period (from 1901) follows directly after Post-Impressionism (Section 3 · Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin), and Cézanne's idea of 'reducing form to a geometric skeleton' in particular became the direct foundation of Cubism — Picasso and Braque, in effect, realized Cézanne's words to "treat nature in terms of the cylinder, the sphere, and the cone." Together with Section 7's Kandinsky (abstraction), Picasso shows the two paths along which early-twentieth-century art moved from 'representation' to 'construction' (the dismantling of form vs. full abstraction). The decisive occasions by which the DIA came to hold these Picassos were the 1970 bequest of Robert Hudson Tannahill (Head of a Harlequin, Melancholy Woman, and others) and the gift of Josephine F. Ford (Girl Reading), and the Tannahill Bequest also formed, together, the backbone of this exhibition's modern collection — Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Degas, Seurat, Matisse, and more.

Did You Know

Picasso's full baptismal name runs to many words — the result of stringing together the names of saints and relatives (the exact word count differs from source to source).

This exhibition allots six works to Picasso alone, showing the full history of his stylistic transformation from the Rose Period of 1905 to the late works of 1940.

'Picasso' is in fact his mother's surname. At first he used it together with his father's surname 'Ruiz,' but he chose only his mother's, which sounded more distinctive.

An anecdote tells that during the Blue Period he was so poor he burned his own drawings for heat in a cold room (a story that has hardened into legend).

There is a famous anecdote that when a Gestapo officer who had seen 'Guernica' asked, 'Did you do this?', Picasso replied, 'No, you did' (though its authenticity is debated).

During the Cubist period he worked so closely with Braque as to be nearly indistinguishable, and there were canvases whose authorship was confusing.

⚖ Notes still to verify

Picasso's contribution to this 52-piece tour is six works, including 'Head of a Harlequin' (1905), 'Girl Reading' (1938), and 'Seated Woman' (1940). — medium: Materials for the Rome Ara Pacis tour (finestresullarte and others) specify six works: Head of a Harlequin (1905), Portrait of Manuel Pallarés (1909), Bottle of Anís del Mono (1915), Woman in an Armchair (1923), Girl Reading (1938), Seated Woman (1940). Seoul press coverage likewise mentions 'six Picassos, stylistic transformation in works from 1905 on' and 'Girl Reading.' This is as far as publicly available materials confirm; the final Seoul lineup can be confirmed in the official catalogue and at the gallery.
'Melancholy Woman' (1902) is included in this 52-piece tour. — low: Since the Rome tour's list of six works (1905, 1909, 1915, 1923, 1938, 1940) contains no 1902 work, it does not appear to be included in this tour. Its DIA permanent ownership is certain (accession no. 70.190, Tannahill Bequest), but whether it travels can be confirmed in the official catalogue and at the gallery.
That the model for 'Girl Reading' (1938) is Marie-Thérèse Walter. — medium: It is true that Walter was the model for many portraits in the late 1930s, and the model for this work is widely identified as Walter as well. Still, this is closer to common belief and conjecture, so the precise details can be confirmed in the DIA's official caption.
The size of 'Girl Reading' is approx. 69.2 × 55.2 cm. — medium: Several sources record it as 27¼ × 21¾ in. (approx. 69.2 × 55.2 cm). The exact figures can be confirmed on the DIA's official page.
The DIA acquisition history of 'Girl Reading' (gift of Josephine F. Ford) and accession no. 2005.60. — low: The broad framework of a gift from the Ford family is reliable. The exact form of the gift (bequest/gift), the year, and the accession number '2005.60' can be confirmed on the DIA's official page.
The exact dimensions and model of 'Seated Woman' (1940). — low: Its DIA ownership (known under accession no. 57149) is confirmed, and the exact dimensions, model, and accession number can be confirmed on the DIA's official page and at the gallery.
The dimensions of 'Melancholy Woman' (approx. 100 × 69.2 cm, vertical format). — medium: Many sources record it as 39⅜ × 27¼ in. (approx. 100 × 69.2 cm), but some (arthive) record it as 69 × 100 cm in horizontal format, so the notation differs from source to source. The exact figures can be confirmed in the DIA's official caption.

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