NEW YORK - Picasso Black and White is the first exhibition to explore a remarkable focus that occupied the great Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, throughout his prolific career: the use of black and white. Few artists have exerted as considerable an influence over subsequent generations as Picasso, one of the most recognized figures in 20th-century art. While his work is often seen through the lens of his diverse styles and subjects—his Blue and Rose periods, pioneering investigations into Cubism, neoclassical figurative paintings, and explorations in Surrealism, for example, or the forceful and somber scenes depicting the atrocities of war, the allegorical still lifes, the vivid interpretations of arthistorical masterpieces, and the highly sexualized canvases of his twilight years—the recurrent motif of black, white, and gray is frequently overlooked.
The artist was continuously investigating, inventing, and drawing in these austere monochromatic tones. The graphic quality of these distinctive, black-and-white works harks back to the spare paintings of Paleolithic artists, who developed a primal visual language using charcoal and simple mineral pigments, and to grisaille and the European drawing tradition. But in adopting this restricted palette, Picasso was also faithful to a centuries-long Spanish tradition, following in the footsteps of earlier masters whose use of black was predominant, such as El Greco, José de Ribera, Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Zurbarán, and Francisco de Goya, who made a series of black paintings in his old age, as Picasso did. Reported to have claimed that color “weakens,” Picasso purged color from his works in order to highlight their formal structure and autonomy. Spanning 1904 to 1971, this chronological survey includes 118 paintings and several sculptures and works on paper, and investigates Picasso’s contributions to the development of art in the 20th century.
On the rotunda floor, the majestic and emblematic bronze Woman with a Vase(summer 1933) and painted metal sculpture Woman with Outstretched Arms (1961) set the tone for the dichotomy and interplay of black and white throughout the exhibition, as do the sculptures on view in the High Gallery. A draftsman par excellence, Picasso paid particular attention to the outline of the figure and was using soft gray hues as early as spring 1904, in the iconic paintingWoman Ironing and in Man, Woman, and Child (fall 1906). His pioneering Cubist works are condensed to geometric and deconstructed components of austere gray tonal ranges, creating grids that animate the canvas, as black-and-white painting composed of sensual arabesques.
A series of works featuring recumbent women, nudes, and bathers is devoted to the artist’s muse Marie-Thérèse Walter. Many are rendered in grisaille, including Swimming Woman (1934), a commanding and somewhat ferocious painting that may presage the epic style of his masterpiece Guernica (1937), which can be seen in several important related works on view. Throughout World War II, in occupied Paris, Picasso created stark figures and reclining nudes, which convey a heightened interest in monochromatic shapes, forms, and volumes. During this time, he painted The Charnel House (Paris, 1944–45), a forbidding black-and-white canvas that records the brutal devastation of war. The minimal tones, graphic intensity, and dramatic contrasts of dark and light, reflected in Still Life with Blood Sausage (May 10, 1941) and so characteristic of Picasso’s most important paintings, convey a melancholic mood as the artist explores the universality of human suffering, death, and deprivation. In 1954, Picasso made a series of mostly black-and-white, stylized works of Sylvette David, a young woman symbolizing a new, sophisticated femininity.
Impressive black-and-white canvases figure among his most vibrant interpretations of art-historical masterpieces, including Reclining Nude (1942) and The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas, after Velázquez) (August 17, 1957), informed respectively by Goya and Velázquez, as well as The Women of Algiers (version L) (1955) and The Rape of the Sabines (1962), the former inspired by Eugène Delacroix and the latter by Nicolas Poussin. In his twilight years, Picasso did not shy away from depicting embracing couples, as seen in The Kiss (1969), and voluptuous nudes such as Seated Woman (Jacqueline) (1962); rather, this range of minimal colors renders the figures all the more alive and conscious of their sexual vitality.
Picasso’s repeated use of a black, white, and gray palette correlates his obsessive interest in line and form, the influence of drawing, his use of monochrome and tonal values, his complex language of pictorial and sculptural signs, and exercises in light and dark. Picasso Black and White presents an illuminating perspective on this lesser-known, but fascinating, aspect of his formidable body of work.
Head of a Horse, Sketch for Guernica (Tête de cheval, étude pour Guernica), Grands-Augustins, Paris, May 2, 1937. Oil on canvas, 65 x 92 cm. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Bequest of the artist© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © Archivo fotográfico Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.
The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas, after Velázquez) (Les Ménines, vue d’ensemble, d’après Velázquez), La Californie, August 17, 1957. Oil on canvas, 194 x 260 cm. Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Gift of the artist, 1968© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Gassull Fotografia.
Mother with Dead Child II, Postscript to Guernica (Femme avec enfant mort II, Post-scriptum à Guernica), Grands-Augustins, Paris, September 26, 1937. Oil on canvas, 130 x 195 cm. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Bequest of the artist© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © Archivo fotográfico Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.
Reclining Woman Reading (Femme couchée lisant), 1960. Oil on canvas, 130.2 x 196.2 cm. Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase, The Benjamin J. Tillar Memorial Trust © 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Tom Jenkins
Reclining Nude (Grand nu couché), Grands-Augustins, Paris, September 30, 1942. Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 195 cm. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Museum Berggruen© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: bpk, Berlin/Nationalgalerie, Museum Berggruen, Staatliche Museen/Jens Ziehe/Art Resource, NY.
The Kiss (Le baiser), Mas Notre-Dame-de-Vie, Mougins, 1969. Oil on canvas, 97.2 x 130.2 cm. Private Collection© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: David Heald.
The Charnel House (Le charnier), Grands-Augustins, Paris, 1944–45. Oil and charcoal on canvas, 199.8 x 250.1 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Mrs. Sam A. Lewisohn Bequest (by exchange), and Mrs. Marya Bernard Fund in memory of her husband Dr. Bernard Bernard, and anonymous funds, 1971© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY.
The Kitchen (La cuisine), Grands-Augustins, Paris, November 9, 1948. Oil on canvas, 175.3 x 250 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Acquired through the Nelson A. Rockefeller Bequest, 1980© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY.
Pablo Picasso in front of The Kitchen (La cuisine, 1948) in his rue des Grands-Augustins studio. Photo: Herbert List/Magnum Photos.