This exhibition will explore how the collaborative process of printmaking was just as important a creative outlet to the legendary artist as painting. In his seven decades of printmaking, he explored technical, creative and graphic innovations that make him one of the most innovative printmakers of the 20th century.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Though Spanish, Picasso worked mainly in France for his entire career. He is revered artistically as his work led the way in many of the movements and developments in 20th century art even as his abusive and troubled relationships with women are currently being reexamined. He is known worldwide mostly for his influential body of painting, which includes masterworks such as Guernica (1937) and Les Demoiselles D’Avignon (1907) while also co-inventing the Cubist style of painting with Georges Braque. In a career that spanned over 70 years, Picasso was incredibly prolific in painting and drawing as well as sculpture, printmaker, ceramics and stage design, creating over 50,000 artworks in his lifetime including up to 2500 prints, more than half of which were made in the last 15 years of his life.
The Picasso as Printmaker exhibition explores the printmaking element of Picasso’s creativity through the lens of the collection of Dr. Robert Baller (Hudson, IL). Picasso had a love affair with paper throughout his career, treating it as a material to be manipulated through collage, sculpture, drawing, photography and printmaking. Though not formally trained in printmaking, Picasso nevertheless worked with the most reputable printmakers in the world and collaborated with them to realize his artistic vision on paper, many times pushing the boundaries of the print medium. As with his creativity that ranged over many mediums, he also didn’t confine himself to one type of printmaking technique. In this exhibition, engraving, etching, linocut, lithography, drypoint, aquatint and pochoir become part of his mastery of the print medium.
