Exhibition Opening - Picasso: Painting the Blue Period

Picasso: Painting the Blue Period
The Phillips Collection – June 12, 2022 Washington (US)

Picasso: Painting the Blue Period is a groundbreaking exhibition that offers new insight into the creative process of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) at the start of his career. This is the first exhibition in Washington, DC, in 25 years to focus on the early works of this 20th century icon as he began to define himself on the international stage.

1900-1904.

Focusing on the years 1900-1904, the exhibition tells how the young Spanish artist. So a beginner painter in his late teens and early twenties, formulated his characteristic blue period style. Thus, engaging with subject matter and motifs in specific works he encountered – by the old masters and his contemporaries. As he moved between Barcelona and Paris. The Blue Period works in the exhibition reveal Picasso’s evolving and sometimes controversial approach to issues of gender, class, poverty, desperation, charity and the incarceration of women.

Blue Period.

At the Heart of Picasso: Painting the Blue Period is a new scientific and art historical research conducted on the three paintings of the Blue Period in the collections of the two co-organizing institutions. La Chambre Bleue (Paris, 1901) from the Phillips Collection, and Crouching Beggarwomen (Barcelona, 1902) and The Soup (Barcelona, 1903) from the Art Gallery of Ontario. This is the first exhibition to approach the blue period in this way. These studies form the technical basis of the exhibition, establishing the context of these works with particular attention to the underlying hidden compositions and newly revealed motifs beneath each work. The final section of the exhibition traces how Picasso revisited and reoriented the themes of the three works during the late Blue Period and early Rose Period of 1905-1906.

70 paintings.

Featuring works from 30 international collections, Picasso: Painting the Blue Period will feature over 70 paintings, sculptures and works on paper by Picasso as well as works by French and Spanish artists he studied before and during the Blue Period.