Picasso-esque

Art Lovers | 10 June 2022

Pablo Picasso National Gallery Of Victoria International

Written by Amelia Pontifex

“Everything you can imagine is real” – Picasso

The National Gallery of Victoria has opened its Winter Masterpieces Exhibition and it’s an exciting one. ‘The Picasso Century’ focuses on, as the name suggests, the extraordinary life and works of Pablo Picasso, but also features other prominent artists, poets and intellectuals that were in dialogue with Picasso throughout his life. These included Guillaume Apollinaire, Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí, Alberto Giacometti, Françoise Gilot, Valentine Hugo, Marie Laurencin, Dora Maar, André Masson, Henri Matisse, Dorothea Tanning and Gertrude Stein. This group of artists, friends, muses and a few of his partners, all inspired, motivated and influenced Picasso and vice versa.

The studio at La Californie (L’Atelier de La Californie)

Exclusively developed between the National Gallery of Victoria, the Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Musee national Picasso-Paris, this collection features over eighty of Picasso’s most iconic works. These works and the works that they inspired by other artists, seek to explore Picasso’s social encounters, his range of diverse influences as well as share the spotlight with other artists that inspired him.

Photography: Kate Shanasy

Audiences will get a rare glimpse into the extraordinary life and career of one of the greatest and best known artists of the last 100 years. Even more special about this exhibition, is that we get a glimpse into the dynamic and rich Parisian and cosmopolitan art scene of the early 20th century. The Belle Epoch ‘the beautiful period’ was a period that started in Paris where art, culture, music and intellect were widely celebrated. Inspired by this period, it’s through Picasso’s artworks on display and the art by contributing artists, that we can see this artistic flourishing in its full splendour. The Picasso Century show will follow fifteen thematic stages of Picasso’s career from the Belle Epoch and explore his career as an all time great painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and even theatre designer. Audiences will also have the opportunity to discover a rich selection of works by Natalia Goncharova, Julio González, Wifredo Lam, Suzanne Valadon and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva.

The exhibition was labelled The Picasso Century because of the wide reach of his art across a number of styles and periods including his pioneering of Cubism, his Blue Period, Rose period, his African period, his series of surrealist works and his post war Modern works – his art career spans over 7 decades until his death in the mid 1970’s.

The Picasso Century

10 June – 9 October 2022

NGV INTERNATIONAL | 180 St Kilda Rd. Melbourne

The exhibition will be expansive and will spread across the whole ground floor of the NGV International. Be sure to check out the Design Store on your way out to take home some Picasso memorabilia for yourself!