EXHIBITION:
Face to Face. Picasso and the Old Masters

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Description

Until 26th June 2022, visitors to the Museo Picasso Málaga have a unique opportunity to discover the links between Pablo Picasso and leading artists of the past. Face to Face. Picasso and the Old Masters is an exhibition, jointly organized with Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla, in which paintings by El Greco, Francisco Pacheco, Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, Francisco de Zurbarán, Cornelius Norbertus Gijsbretchs, Bernardo Lorente Germán and Diego Bejarano will be hung alongside major works by Pablo Picasso.

Face to Face. Picasso and the Old Masters presents paintings from the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla’s remarkable collection of Spanish and other European Masters opposite nine important works by Picasso belonging to the Fundación Almine y Bernard Picasso para el Arte (FABA).  The exhibition at the MPM is distinguished from its previous appearance at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla by the inclusion of an  exceptional additional painting by Picasso in the collection of the Museo de Málaga. The exhibition is curated by Michael FitzGerald.

By juxtaposing works by Picasso with those of the Old Masters, the exhibition offers visitors a unique opportunity to discover the links between Picasso’s work and those painters.  These pairings not only enable viewers to make specific comparisons between the work of Picasso and the Masters in order to understand how deeply Picasso’s art was rooted in Spanish traditions. The juxtapositions also allow us to discern how he transformed these traditions into the revolutionary art of the 20th century.  

Born in Málaga in 1881 and trained by his painter and art teacher father, José Ruiz Blasco, Picasso absorbed the Spanish painting tradition from childhood. Furthermore, his attachment to the art and culture of Spain was to last and become stronger over his long career. Pablo Picasso transformed 20^th-century art, yet he was a keen student with a profound interested in the art of the past. His work was deeply rooted in Spanish culture, particularly in the baroque period. The achievements of these Spanish Masters provided Picasso with models and techniques that drove him both to emulate and transform tradition. In this complex response, Picasso explored how the Masters themselves had responded to the classical tradition by embracing styles that the purists had excluded from the classical canon of Italy and France.  This eclecticism was central to the Masters of the Spanish Baroque and inspired Picasso’s own willingness to disrupt artistic traditions.

The themes covered in this exhibition revolve around the social and psychological meaning of the portrait, the role of illusionistic realism in paintings, and meditations on mortality. A wide range of Picasso’s periods and styles have been selected to represent the diverse nature of his art throughout his career. All these aspects can be seen in seven groups of works, in which the viewer is able to examine how Picasso emulated his predecessors, occasionally with a rather personal sense of humour.

https://www.museopicassomalaga.org/en/temporary-exhibitions/cara-cara-expo-malaga-eng