Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Transformation

Rating:
Summary: One Picasso Exhibition Too Many? NOT!!!
Review: While some art buffs may find it hard to believe that anything new could be said about the unquestionably great and unquestionably over-publicized Pablo Picasso, this Museum of Modern Art catalogue actually manages to re-invigorate the discussion of an artist whom some might say the MOMA (having held four colossal exhibitions on Picasso within 15 years) should stop shoving down the public's throat. While the paintings are, for the most part, quite familiar to Picasso enthusiasts (with some delicious exceptions), the catalogue contains several excellent essays which approach the works of art from a personal, rather than art-historical perspective. Picasso's relationships with his various women, and the effect each wife/mistress had on his vision of reality, are thoughtfully and, for the most part, intelligently explored, despite some occasional descents into blatant "National Enquirer"-type celebrity gossip on the part of these supposedly "scientific" critics. Fortunately, Picasso's art stands above the possibly-too intimate concerns of the authors (a careful perusal of the gossip-filled footnotes will amuse you for hours). Page after page of excellent reproductions stun, startle, amuse and amaze the beholder through their sheer perversity. Nearly 30 years after Picasso's death, his art still shocks and challenges the public. My personal favorites are the paintings of the sad and sensual Dora Maar, which are unmatched anywhere in Picasso's oeuvre for sheer, brutal power. Their distortions haunt the mind, although the joyous and often semi-pornographic pictures of the teenage mistress, Marie-Therese, possess an equal charge. This book is a definite must in any art library.