There is also the magnificent "Guitare" of 1920, a gouache on paper from the Ladislas Szecsi collection and exhibited at the MoMA in San Francisco as early as 1938, the year following the creation of "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso, in the exhibition that Tega gallery dedicates to the genius born in Malaga in 1881 starting from March 13th until May 25th.
An amazing paper, which marks the moment of opening up to the suggestions of classicism, and which accompanies other masterpieces of Picasso's design, such as "La Negrita", a paper of important dimensions (36 x 45 cm) and still cubist in layout, created in 1914. A crucial year in the history of Europe, due to the outbreak of the First World War and important in the artist's private history, which sees some of his associates such as Georges Braque, André Derain and Guillaume Apollinaire leave for the front, and the supporters like Gertrude Stein and Daniel Henry Kahnweiler abandon Paris. Just to Kahnweiler, the merchant who contributed decisively to the affirmation of cubism and its main representative, belonged another sheet in the exhibition, the beautiful "Nu, homme à la pipe et Amour" of 1969, ink on paper that encloses some of the favorite themes of the author of the “Demoiselles d'Avignon”, the nude and the relationship between the painter and the model, which in this case manifests itself in the form of an allegory. It is also a significant work also because it is among the later ones by the master, who will disappear in Mougins in 1973.
It is therefore an exhibition that follows Picasso's journey from the heroic season of the Cubist avant-garde, passing through the moment of reflection on the classicism of the 1920s - also represented in the exhibition by the refined charcoal "Gueridon", also from XNUMX, also 'it belonged to a prestigious collection such as that of Berggruen - to then touch the moments closest to surrealism of the thirties and finally reach the post-war expressions, when Picasso, by now risen to authentic living legend of contemporary painting, moves between the languages of the present and the past with an inimitable freedom both for his peers and for his heirs.
In particular, the exhibition presents a series of papers dedicated to the theme of the nude and the portrait, two of the artist's most popular genres, which allow us to read the stylistic evolution and at the same time the continuity of inspiration of the author who dedicated unique attention and dedication to drawing, engraving, work on paper in general, such as to make these tests of his considered real major works.
The exhibition, which presents a total of twenty works, will be accompanied by a catalog containing reproductions of all the works on display and an introduction by Walter Guadagnini, who analyzes the importance of drawing in the formation and evolution of Picasso's poetics, from the early XNUMXth century to the latest evidence.
