Picasso [antikvár]

This exhibition links two world-famous names, those of Pablo Picasso and Peter Ludwig, the artist and the collector. What they have in common is a passion for art. When Peter Ludwig "discovered" Picasso in 1947, he was 22 years old, and the artist was 66 - a genius whose art was not on view in postwar Germany. The young art historian was deeply impressed and he took his doctorate in 1950 with a dissertation on Picasso. What followed was a logical continuation of this early discovery. For decades, Peter and Irene Ludwig have been enthusiastically collecting works by the master of modernism and their passion has still not been satisfied. The Picasso collection became the couple's life work and it plays a central role in their collecting activity as a whole. The collection, which today Includes some 170 Items, is now being shown In its entirety for the first time to a wide public - an event of the greatest significance, both for Picasso research and for visitors to the exhibition. Assembled with much love and expertise over many years, it throws new light on Picasso's ouvre. The collection provides a fascinating journey into the artist's Incredible and wide-ranging powers of creation. The visitor will encounter works which have seldom. If ever, been seen by the public. The earliest work in the collection dates from 1899, and the most recent from August 1972, only a few months before the artist's death. An uninterrupted creative career spanning more than seventy years is here documented year by year. All the Important phases are represented by significant works. Peter and Irene Ludwig were uniquely fortunate In being able to follow Picasso's late work personally and they recognized its greatness at an early stage. Thirteen of the works in the collection date from 1972 and they give the chronological close of the exhibition a superb point of focus. It is principally through their long and tireless activity as Picasso collectors that Peter and Irene Ludwig have made this exhibition possible. They welcomed the Idea of an exhibition enthusiastically and did everything in their power to ensure that the project could come to fruition. They constantly made our work easier with their advice and help, both in the field of scholarly research and with the organization as a whole. Above all, we are deeply grateful to the Ludwigs for their willingness to part with their works for so long. The exhibition opens in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, and this is of more than mere symbolic significance, for Picasso himself made a considerable contribution to the founding of the Museum. The exhibition then naturally moves to the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, where it was organized, as many of the Important works belong there. The last venue is Nuremberg, where, on the occasion of the reopening of the German National Museum, all the collections of Peter and Irene Ludwig are to be assembled for the first time. The scholarly and organizational aspects of both exhibition and catalogue have been undertaken by Evelyn Weiss, Deputy Director of the Ludwig Museum, In close collaboration with the Picasso Museum, Barcelona, and we are very grateful to her for her tireless commitment to the project. The catalogue was produced with the help of Barbara Thiemann, whom we also thank for her unstinting work. Maria Teresa Ocana, Gerhard Bott, Marc Scheps