Love, Fame and Tragedy

Picasso 

PICASSO 1932 – LOVE, FAME, TRAGEDY

The Tate Modern show 'PICASSO 1932 – LOVE, FAME, TRAGEDY' is of Pablo's work from a single year. An entire show of more than one hundred works of art from one year. Pablo lived until he was 91 so you can do the maths on how many paintings he created during his life. He is a man obsessed with painting.

It is 1932 and Picasso is 51 years old. At this stage in his life Picasso is a celebrity, wealthy, married and father to a young boy. An artist in his element with a major retrospective of his work planned for that summer, which he hopes will elevate him to one of the greatest living artists. He is also shagging a 22 year old.

The subject of his lust is Parisian Marie-Therese Walter, who had been his young lover for the past five years. They met in a department store when she was 17 and he told her she had "an interesting face". Her head later takes the shape of a heart in one of the featured artworks. Within weeks they were lovers, although the then 45-year-old was already married to Olga. Neo-Classical Olga. 

There were three elements of the Tate show that stood out to me. The first was a darkly painted room, which is an almost-reenactment of Picasso's 1932 retrospective. It is cluttered and in-cohesive, yet the walls are pretty much identical to the 1932 Pablo curated show. There are also glass tables filled with archive photographs and catalogues for reference. I thought the room was very thoughtful and as a viewer you could sense Picasso's determination. 

The second room housed three mega artworks. They all screamed sex and I was utterly entranced by them. The three reclining nudes, all painted from Picasso's imagination, were made consecutively over a period of just ten days. The works are now in private collections and have not been seen together since his retrospective in 1932. The painting below to me feels like love. 

The last piece that I found interesting was 'The Dream, 24th January 1932'. In this artwork Pablo is pushing the boundaries and is totally distracted by lust. The figure (inspired by the girlfriend) is asleep, with her breast exposed (classical), hands almost masturbating and a purple cock resting on her face (not so classical). It is disturbing, erotic, tender and modern. I found the art evocative and modern. It could almost be a modern slutty Snapchat.

'The Dream, 24th January 1932' is famous not just for its eroticism. In 2006 a US art collector agreed to pay $139 million for the work. However the current owner, Vegas casino owner Steve Wynn, accidentally put his elbow through the canvas. Makes me wonder what he was doing to end up with his elbow through a Picasso! However, the restoration work didn’t damage its final value and it finally sold for a cool $155m.

I found myself comparing 'Le Rêve' to the unfinished, Neo-Classical painting of Picasso's wife, Olga. The painting (seen below) was hung alongside the sexy nudes at the 1932 retrospective. Olga divorced Pablo a few years later.