For David Hockney (born 1937), Picasso has long been an inspiration. As a student, Hockney made several visits to the 1960 exhibition at the Tate Gallery. It taught him that an artist need not adhere to a single style and in 1962 Hockney dubbed his Young Contemporaries exhibition ‘Demonstrations of Versatility’.
Following Picasso’s death in 1973, Hockney made two prints in tribute. Other works from the 1970s also refer to Picasso.
In 1980 Hockney had a commission from the Metropolitan Opera, New York, that included a design for Parade based on Picasso’s designs for the ballet’s 1917 première.
While in New York that year, he saw a Picasso retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art which reinvigorated his belief that Cubism marked a turning point in pictorial representation.
This directly affected his painting and prompted him to use photography to depict the world in a Cubist fashion. The resulting photographic collages replaced drawing in Hockney’s practice for several years.
Hockney was an early advocate of Picasso’s late style. For a lecture on ‘Important Paintings of the 1960s’, he selected only works by Picasso. Cubism remains a stimulus: Hockney has recently applied the multi-directional view of his ‘cubist’ photographs to video.
Many of Picasso’s works of this period function explicitly as ‘propaganda’ for the Communist cause and the Peace Movement. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the exhibition provides a timely look at Picasso’s work in the Cold War era and how the artist transcended the ideological and aesthetic oppositions of East and West.
Picasso: Peace and Freedom reveals Picasso as a politically and socially engaged artist, actively involved in politics and the Peace Movement during the Cold War.
In October 1944 Picasso joined the French Communist Party and remained a member until his death in 1973. His work during this period chronicled human conflict and war but also expressed a deep desire for peace, international understanding and equality.
In October 1944 Picasso joined the French Communist Party and remained a member until his death in 1973. His work during this period chronicled human conflict and war but also expressed a deep desire for peace, international understanding and equality.
The exhibition looks at Picasso as a ‘History Painter’, injecting this traditional form of narrative painting with new significance and meaning.
It tracks how he followed the success of Guernica1937 as a political protest painting with a series of ambitious works reflecting events during the Cold War: The Charnel House 1944–5; the War and Peace murals; The Women of Algiers 1954–55; Las Meninas 1957; and The Rape of the Sabines series, painted at the height of Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
The exhibition also explores the historical themes embedded in other important groups of works of the post-war years such as his extended series of still lifes featuring human and animal skulls.
At the core of the exhibition is Picasso’s ‘Dove of Peace’ which became the international emblem of the Peace Movement and a symbol of hope in the Cold War period. It tracks how he followed the success of Guernica1937 as a political protest painting with a series of ambitious works reflecting events during the Cold War: The Charnel House 1944–5; the War and Peace murals; The Women of Algiers 1954–55; Las Meninas 1957; and The Rape of the Sabines series, painted at the height of Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
The exhibition also explores the historical themes embedded in other important groups of works of the post-war years such as his extended series of still lifes featuring human and animal skulls.
Many of Picasso’s works of this period function explicitly as ‘propaganda’ for the Communist cause and the Peace Movement. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the exhibition provides a timely look at Picasso’s work in the Cold War era and how the artist transcended the ideological and aesthetic oppositions of East and West.
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