Picasso [antikvár]

Preface Roland Penrose, author of the introduction to this volume, was acknowledged as England's foremost authority on Picasso. The story of his involvement with the artist is - like a cubist painting - many faceted. Penrose met Picasso in 1928. When he came to write a biography, Picasso. The Life and Wor/t, in 1954 Penrose was able to draw upon their lengthy friendship for many of his valuable insights. A humorous instance of this is his revelation that Picasso grafted the snout of his Afghan hound, Kasbec, onto the face of his beloved mistress Dora Maar in portraits of her - something one could not discover without the chance to observe both at first hand! Because of his personal acquaintance with Picasso during the latter part of his career Penrose manages to avoid the blinkered dismissal of the late work that once prevailed. Penrose does not disguise his reverence for Picasso. Curiously, though, his own art was never influenced by him. It may be that for a young artist reaching maturity between the wars Picasso - as the most famous modern artist - was more an image than a viable artistic model. After dabbling in abstraction, Penrose looked to surrealism where he was beguiled by the work and person of Max Ernst. Happily this chance encounter stimulated rather than stifled his own creativity, as might have happened had he tried to emulate Picasso. The surrealist background is worth bearing in mind. After all, when Penrose met him Picasso had more or less thrown in his lot with the surrealists too - the evidence in his recent work would have been plain for Penrose to see. As a critic, Penrose would write most acutely about this surrealist phase. His sensitivity to a poeric and subjective side of cubism, as well as its cerebral and rational aspect, may also owe something to surrealism: André Breton, whose own esteem for Picasso equalled that of Penrose, had declared in 1936 that 'Picasso is surrealist in cubism.' After the Second World War Penrose translated a rather surreal play by Picasso, Desire Caught by the Tail, which was staged at a West End theatre in 1950. Penrose was on the organizing committee of the International Exhibition of Surrealism held in London in 1936, which included several Picasso paintings. He was instrumental in bringing Gueniica to London in 1938. Thereafter he helped organize several Picasso exhibitions under the auspices of the ICA and the Arts Council. It was a great privilege of Penrose to be able to collect the art he admired. At a rime when the Tate Gallery had only three Picassos, Penrose loaned twelve to an exhibition of Picasso in English Collections at the London Gallery in 1939. These had mostly been purchased from a Belgian dealer René Gaffé and the surrealist poet Paul Eluard. But the gem of the collection, the Weeping Woman, was bought while the paint was still wet directly from Picasso. Art collecring is usually a private affair. It is a fitting tribute to the