Exhibition
PICASSO’S WOMEN: FERNANDE TO JACQUELINE. A tribute to John Richardson
3 May 2019 – 22 Jun 2019
Event times
Hours: Monday–Saturday 10–6
Cost of entry
free admission
Address
- 980 Madison Avenue
- New York
New York - NY 10075
- United States
I am perhaps a painter without style.
—Pablo Picasso
About
Gagosian, in partnership with members of the Picasso family, is pleased to present Picasso’s Women: Fernande to Jacqueline, an exhibition of paintings and sculptures that attests to the central role and influence of the many women in Picasso’s life. It has been organized in honor of the gallery’s late friend and colleague, Sir John Richardson.
In the early 1960s, Richardson was planning to write a study of Picasso’s portraits and spent hours with the artist, poring over reproductions of his works. As Picasso spoke about the complexities of his pictorial thinking—pointing out, for example, that a portrait of Dora Maar might also contain elements referring to her romantic predecessor Marie-Thérèse Walter, and her successor Françoise Gilot—Richardson began to believe that a detailed biographical treatment of Picasso’s portraiture would close a notable gap in Picasso scholarship. Decades later he would sit down to write what would become the monumental multivolume biography, A Life of Picasso.
Maar once told Richardson that when a new woman entered Picasso’s life, everything changed: the art, the house, the poetry, even the dog. And yet, Maar’s observation is a bit misleading, for within the era of each successive muse, Picasso never settled on a singular style. Rather, in penetrating Picasso’s imagination, each woman served as a catalyst for experiments in color and form that would continue to change as the contours of the relationship shifted. It is through this process that Picasso’s work was constantly reinvented and renewed.