Marie-Therese Walter 1937
Head of Woman 1901
"Picasso's haste has not yet given him time to forge
a personal style; his personality is in this haste, this
youthful impetuous spontaneity. I understand he is
not yet twenty, and covers as many as three canvases
a day." LA REVUE BLANCHE / 1901
Woman and Child 1903
In the spring of 1901 the avant-garde artist Carlos Casagemas
invited the object of his love, Germaine, and a smattering of
other friends, to dinner that evening at a Paris café.
Following the convivial dinner, Casagemas rose to publicly
propose marriage to Germaine. Firmly rebuffed, he pulled
a revolver from concealment and fired a missing shot
at this humiliation. Finally, to everyone's horror, he ended his life
with a bullet through his temple.
Until recently Casagemas had been an almost inseparable
companion for Picasso. His death resulted in the twenty year old
artist embarking on a theme of morose imagery that lasted more
than two years. But now Picasso had his personal style.
It became known as the Blue Period.
Woman with Flowers 1909
From cool blue loneliness to the detached warmth of cubism.
Picasso lives with Fernande Olivier, portrayed here as well as
in sixty other Picasso paintings. Fernande was his first.
Seaside Bathers 1918
Two Running Women 1922
Olga 1923
In 1918 Olga Khokhlova gave up a successful ballet career
to become Pablo Picasso's wife. This portrait is of the mother
of Paulo, the couple's two year old son. A discovered affair
would eventually rupture their relationship but Olga remained
legally married to Picasso until her death in 1955 because
he refused to equally divide his property with her as
required by French divorce law.
Seated Bather 1929
1929 - the Stock Market crash. Economies shudder.
Politics increasingly turns to violent means for solutions.
Anxiety abounds. Picasso paints the portrait of a
beautiful woman enjoying a pleasant seaside setting.
Except this woman is a zombie monster, assembled
from machined parts. It all looks so very warlike.
Woman with Beach Ball 1932
Woman Reading 1936
Weeping Woman 1937
Picasso gives us heart-rending, boundless grief
resulting from bombing a Basque village
by Nazi planes in the spring of 1937.
Marie-Therese Walter 1937
Picasso began this affair in 1927 when he was forty-five and
Marie seventeen. Olga only discovered the relationship eight
years later when Marie became pregnant with Maya - 1935,
the same year Picasso discovered the new love of his life,
Dora Maar.
Dora Maar 1937
Gifted photographer, surrealist painter,
darkly beautiful and intense.
Picasso has eyes only for you, Dora.
Impossible you.
She is the model he used for painting
"Weeping Woman".
The Imploring 1937
Seated Woman 1953
Algerian Women 1955
Revisiting the brash Les Demoiselles of Picasso's youth,
only slowly mellowed, with complexity - as you might expect
from a man of seventy-four.
love
dad
© Tom Taylor
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