Picasso captured by the photographer's eye in new exhibition
A striped sweater, a crown of gray hair that surrounds his bald head and a penetrating look: it is an image that has become emblematic of Pablo Picasso, the Spanish artist worshiped by some of the most important photographers of the 20th century.
A new exhibition in his museum in Barcelona, "Picasso, the photographer's vision", is a journey through the artist's life through photographs, some of them taken by Picasso himself and others with him as protagonist.
It includes a 1952 portrait of the French photographer Robert Doisneau, in which the painter appears for the first time with his characteristic striped sweater behind a window, leaning against the glass.
By then, Picasso lived in the south of France, where he would spend the last years of his life as a celebrity, under the lens of prestigious photographers such as Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassai or David Douglas Duncan.
"Picasso is photogenic, he had that conscience since he was very young and he played with this image", says Violeta Andrés, curator of the exhibition that begins on Friday.
"He was one of the first to understand the power of image... And instead of shutting himself up and not letting anyone enter his space, he let himself be seen but always controlled his image."
Dozens of photographers came to his home, taking portraits of Picasso and his studio, full of various works of art, but few managed to get him "working for real, in a spontaneous gesture."
With the exception perhaps of his lover, surrealist photographer Dora Maar.
In a series of 1937 portraits in his Paris studio, she was able to show Picasso forgetting the camera, engrossed in making one of his greatest creations, "Guernica".
"It's one of the few photos in which he allowed us to really see his creative intimacy," says Andres.
On top of portraits, the exhibition also includes photos taken by the artist himself as well as works bord from his collaboration with photographers like Maar or Andre Villers.
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