A towering figure above any other artist in modern art is
Pablo Picasso and this elevated position becomes very clear with an etching by
David Hockney entitled ‘The Student: Homage to Picasso’ made in 1973. For Hockney, Picasso has been an
inspiration, a role model for what an artist can be and what a painter can
achieve in exploring the different facets of artistic representation. However,
Hockney is not alone in his reverence for Picasso as I found in the exhibition ‘Picasso and Modern British Art’ I
recently visited at Tate Britain.
Picasso’s influence on British art is made fairly
comprehensible by the Tate’s show, considering how idiosyncratic Picasso’s work
can be. By weaving an account of how both British artists and collectors
responded to the modernist master ’s artistic inventions and innovations, I
came away not only understanding a lot more about the great Picasso but with an
insight into what it was like to be an artist in the shadow of his prolific aesthetic
bravado.
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| My Sketch Book Picasso Based upon photograph taken by Jacqueline Picasso in 1957 |
Picasso’s creative energy is awe inspiring and of the
seven British artists the exhibition features, I feel Ben Nicolson, Henry Moore
and Hockney all emerged as better artists for their encounter with Picasso,
taking the inspiration and turning it into something which was uniquely their
own.
The inclusion of Francis Bacon was a surprise as I had
always thought his works were more in the realms of abstraction but apparently
Picasso made him aware of ‘the
possibilities of painting’. Wyndham Lewis appears from my view to have jumped
upon avant-garde band wagon with an ego, seeing himself on the modernist
pedestal rather than Picasso. Duncan Grant and Graham Sutherland were both
befriended by Picasso and their art seems to reflect their involvement with the
artist, totally submerged you could say in Picasso’s aesthetic styles. That was
the genius of Picasso, he was a ‘stylistic shifting’ creative, what you take
from him depends on the style that Picasso was working in at the time you
discovered his paintings.
It was a revelation for me that Picasso knew of British
art long before Britain or British artists had heard of him. By all accounts,
Picasso’s reputation was slow to make inroads upon the British art market, only
a few progressive collectors snapped up his works. Very few galleries showed
Picasso’s revolutionary art as it was deemed a ‘foreign intrusion of highly
disputable merit’ with the Tate making its first purchase of a cubist Picasso
only in 1949. British tastes it would appear were not accepting of modern art
let alone a Picasso but finally the Tate mounted a Picasso retrospective in
1960, only then did Picasso start to climb onto the modernist pedestal!
Hockney recalls frequently visiting the exhibition and
seeing the carefree attitude with which Picasso changed styles, questioning
every angle of representation and translating it into painterly insurrection.
It offered Hockney a way forward with his art and has driven Hockney’s own reflection
on the problems of depiction, the student following up the master’s methodology
but very much following his own instincts.
There is no doubt that Picasso is a giant in terms of
modern art and it true “no artist can
afford to ignore him” , deserving
to be placed upon a pedestal but I should imagine that it is a lonely place. Picasso
to me needed to butt heads with art and artists, it sparked his work and his
inspiration came from working. Let’s not forget that cubism came to us not just
from Picasso’s creativity but also that of the artist Georges Braque. The works
of Matisse spurred Picasso in a prolific artistic rivalry and then there is the
modern take on many of the grand masters of art!
Duncan Grant noted “In admiring Picasso a sense of
contest is nearly always to be taken into account”.
Yes Picasso’s shadow is very long and hard to
shake. So who is ready to take on Picasso?
Well there is a fascinating book that reveals Picasso paying homage to
an unusual friend,
He featured in many of
Picasso’s reinterpretations of Velazquez’s masterpiece “Las Meninas” and played a significant role in the history of
modern art, he ate a Picasso! and stole the artist’s heart.
"Lump, the Dog who ate a Picasso" David Douglas Duncan
Thames & Hudson, 2006
"A great insight into Picasso at work from an unusual perspective"
Also worth a peek............
'David Hockney's Dog Days' Thames & Hudson, 2006
Picasso & Modern British Art - Tate Britain, London.
Exhibition open until 15 July 2012 "Well worth a visit"
'David Hockney's Dog Days' Thames & Hudson, 2006
Picasso & Modern British Art - Tate Britain, London.
Exhibition open until 15 July 2012 "Well worth a visit"
