Ricardo Cinalli - a Ravishing Muse – an Irreverent Homage to Picasso

About

The exhibition is an installation of a series of  “copies” of “Têtes de Femmes” by Picasso, all renowned and reproduced many times. It is almost a dream or a utopia.

Unintentionally, the show coincides with Picasso Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, London.  A distracted visitor may wonder how can this collection of such masterpieces be reunited under one roof, especially in a small Marylebone gallery.  The portraits, the style, even the carefully replicated frames are almost alike. However the sizes differ and in some, Cinalli’s own imprint is present.

Notions of forgery, reproduction, appropriation, branding and reverence are evoked in this exhibition. In 1987, Cinalli took part in “Viva Picasso” at Mario Flecha Gallery, with a homage to the artist that was then published in Time Out. An internationally renowned artist in his own right, at ease in drawing, painting, installations and large-scale murals including Alexandra Palace, BP and Vintners Place, London and the Duomo in Terni, Italy, Cinalli has indulged a life-long desire to pay tribute to Picasso. “It is like a Spring clean, taking a step back and just painting these admired works for my own enjoyment, with no other aim than to amuse myself and create a utopia, with all these recognisable portraits and beautiful women surrounding me in my own studio”.

Picasso’s works fall in the category of unattainable, only to be in museums, auctioned at innumerable amounts and owned by just the very privileged few. Here, the collections have been ravished and Cinalli offers the opportunity to access and acquire the almost impossible.

With these works, Cinalli succeeds in delighting and captivating the viewer. As the term suggests, he also takes by force his muse, Picasso, and ravishes and is ravished by his femmes, seizing them and thus making his own, iconic masterpieces of the Twentieth Century.