Curiouser and Curiouser

Over 150 years since Lewis Carroll published Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the storyline and characters are still a global phenomenon. As the Victoria and Albert museum demonstrates in their exhibition Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, the fantasy world of Wonderland continues to inspire artists, writers and members of the public. The immersive display takes visitors on a journey to discover the evolution of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, from its humble beginnings in the 19th century to its worldwide celebrity.

Lewis Carroll is the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-98), an Oxford don, logician, writer, poet, Anglican clergyman, and photographer. Although Carroll is most famous for his literary works, he did not deliberately set out to become an author. Carroll’s career path changed one afternoon in July 1862, when he took a boat trip and picnic with the daughters of Henry Liddell (1811-98), the Dean of Christ Church College. Affectionately remembered as a “golden afternoon”, Carroll kept the three girls, Alice, Edith, and Lorina, entertained during the boat trip by making up fantasy stories about a girl called Alice and her adventures underground. The “real Alice” begged Carroll to write the story down, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was born.

The “real Alice”, Alice Pleasance Liddell (1852-1934), was only five years old when she met Charles Dodgson for the first time. Dodgson often asked Alice and her sisters to sit for photographs, so that he could experiment with his new camera. The Victorian era was a period of change, particularly in technology, science, art and politics, all of which inspired the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Of course, the character Alice was based on Alice Liddell, a girl with a stubborn, curious nature who bullied Dodgson into writing the story down. He presented Alice with a handwritten manuscript called Alice’s Adventures Under Ground as a Christmas present in 1864.

Before giving the manuscript to Alice, Dodgson researched the natural history of animals to make some of his characters, for instance, a dodo, as accurate as possible. Of course, some creatures in the story are entirely fictional. Dodgson also sought the opinion of his friend and mentor George MacDonald (1824-1905), a minister and author who loved the story and suggested Dodgson publish it. By the time Alice received her copy, Dodgson was already preparing the manuscript for publication and extending it from the original 15,500-words to 27,500 words.

Not wanting to publish under his real name, Dodgson decided to create a pseudonym. Inspired by the Latin version of his real name, Carolus Ludovic, he chose two other English names that derived from the same words: Lewis Carroll. Dodgson also wished to change the book title and toyed with Alice’s Hour in Elf-land and other options before settling on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Finally, Dodgson/Lewis was ready for Alexander Macmillan (1818-96), a co-founder of Macmillan Publishers, to print his work. For the illustrations, he approached John Tenniel (1820-1914), who worked tirelessly alongside The Brothers Dalziel, a wood-engraving business in London. By November 1865, the book was published.

Both children and adults enjoyed the “delicious nonsense”, which inspired Carroll to work on a second book. The production time took much longer because Tenniel had other jobs but managed to work on the illustrations from 1869 onwards. Carroll named the sequel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, which was eventually published on 6th December 1871. It rekindled the nation’s love of Alice and the odd characters, as well as introducing new and bizarre creatures.

Most people are familiar with the story of Alice who follows a white rabbit down a rabbit hole. She finds herself in a hall with a tiny door, which she is far too large to fit through. She then discovers a bottle of liquid labelled “DRINK ME”, which she obligingly does, which causes her to shrink in size. Unfortunately, she can no longer reach the key to the small door, which rests on a table far above her head. Yet, she quickly discovers a cake labelled “EAT ME”, and grows to the size of the room. After flooding the room with her tears, Alice picks up a fan and shrinks back down.

Now Alice can fit through the door, where she meets several peculiar characters, including the Dodo, who starts a Caucus-Race, which consists of everyone running in a circle with no clear winner. Whilst Alice is based on Alice Liddell, Carroll based the Dodo on himself. Carroll spoke with a stutter and often introduced himself as “Dodo-Dodgson”. Carroll also referenced Alice’s sisters, Lorina and Edith, by mentioning birds called Lory and Eaglet.

Next, Alice meets the Duchess, who Tenniel based on Quentin Matsys’s (1466-1530) The Ugly Duchess (c. 1513). The painting is said to be a portrait of Margaret, Countess of Tyrol (1318-69), who had the reputation of the ugliest woman who ever existed. Since Matsys painted the portrait 150 years after her death, there is no proof that she looked as grotesque as the caricature. Nonetheless, Tenniel felt inspired by the painting and made the Duchess look equally ugly.

The Cheshire Cat, who belongs to the Duchess, has a distinguishing feature – his grin – and the ability to gradually disappear until only his mouth remains. The phrase “grinning like a Cheshire Cat” predates the Alice books, and according to A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, Second, Corrected and Enlarged Edition compiled by Francis Grose (1731-91), means “one who shows his teeth and gums in laughing.” Carroll may have based the character on Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-82), the Patristic Catenary (expert on the fathers of the Church) and professor of Hebrew at Oxford University.

There are other characters in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel who may be based on real people. Whether Carroll intended this is uncertain, but Tenniel’s drawing of the Lion and the Unicorn looks remarkably like his Punch illustrations of Prime Ministers William Gladstone (1809-98) and Benjamin Disraeli (1804-88). Whilst the appearance of the Lion and the Unicorn may be Tenniel’s input, Carroll’s reference to a conga eel that taught “Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils” certainly alludes to the art critic John Ruskin (1819-1900), who instructed the Liddell children in drawing, sketching, and painting in oils.

One of the most memorable scenes in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is the Mad Tea-Party, where Alice discovers the Hatter having tea with the March Hare and the Dormouse. Carroll instructed Tenniel to base his illustration on Theophilus Carter (1824-1904), an eccentric British furniture dealer. Carter used to wear a top hat and stand in the doorway of his shop, watching the world pass by. While at the party, the sleepy Dormouse tells Alice a story about three sisters called Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie. This is yet another reference to Alice and her sisters. Lacie is an anagram of Alice; Elsie sounds like “L.C., Lorina Charlotte’s initials; and Tillie is short for Matilda, Edith Liddell’s nickname.

Carroll loosely based the Queen of Hearts on Queen Victoria (1819-1901) because he thought children would recognise her authority. He may also have taken inspiration from the Wars of the Roses (1455-87) because the Queen is angry that the gardeners have planted white roses instead of red.

Not all characters have real-life human counterparts. Through the Looking-Glass has many referenced to nursery rhymes, such as Humpty Dumpty, and features pieces from the game of chess. Dodgson even took inspiration from buildings in Oxford; for example, the “Rabbit Hole” symbolises the stairs at the back of the main hall in Christ Church.

By the end of the Victorian era, the Alice stories and characters extended beyond the books. Products and merchandise containing Tenniel’s illustrations were much sought after, and the stories found new life on stage as part of dance performances and pantomimes. Before his death, the English novelist Walter Besant (1836-1901) said Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland “was a book of that extremely rare kind which will belong to all the generations to come until the language becomes obsolete.” Besant’s statement proved correct, and Alice continues to be a positive role model.

In 1903, Lewis Carroll’s famous book was adapted for film for the first time. With the title Alice in Wonderland, the silent film squeezed as many scenes into a ten-minute slot. At the time, this was the longest film made in Britain. Directors Percy Stow (1876-1919) and Cecil Hepworth (1874-1952) used all the available technology to create live versions of Tenniel’s famous drawings. Twelve years later, American director W. W. Young produced a 50-minute version of the film, albeit still silent.

The first “talkie” version of Alice in Wonderland appeared on screens in 1931, starring Ruth Gilbert (1912-93) as Alice. The following year, the “real Alice”, now married to English cricketer Reginald Hargreaves (1852-1926), visited America to take part in the centenary celebrations of Lewis Carroll’s birth. Although Alice had kept herself out of the public eye for most of her life, her presence in America inspired “Alice Fever”, and the books, merchandise, and films soared in popularity.

The following year, Paramount Pictures produced their version of Alice in Wonderland, which combined the storyline from both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Previously, Lewis Carroll forbade stage productions to combine the two books, but since his death, producers disregarded his wishes. The film featured Charlotte Henry (1914-80) as Alice, Cary Grant (1904-86) as the Mock Turtle, and W.C. Fields (1880-1946) as Humpty Dumpty.

Without a doubt, the most iconic Alice in Wonderland film to date is Walt Disney’s 1951 animated adaptation. Mary Blair (1911-78) developed the concept for the illustrations, modernising Tenniel’s drawings with bold and unreal colours. Today, Alice is recognisable from her long, bright blond hair, blue dress and “Alice band”, a hair accessory named after the character. The lively script and music earned the film a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture, but it lost to An American in Paris.

In 2010, Walt Disney Pictures reproduced Alice in Wonderland as a live-action film directed by Tim Burton (born 1958). It is a much darker, fantasy version of the story, which serves as an unofficial sequel to the original. Alice is now 19 and thought her adventures in Wonderland were all a dream. She soon learns they were not when she falls down a rabbit hole for the second time in her life. The creatures of Wonderland need Alice’s help to defeat the Red Queen, not to be confused with the Queen of Hearts and slay the Jabberwocky, a dragon-like beast written about in Through the Looking Glass.

Burton’s Alice in Wonderland starred many leading actors, such as Johnny Depp (Mad Hatter), Mia Wasikowska (Alice), Helena Bonham Carter (Red Queen), Anne Hathaway (White Queen), Matt Lucas (Tweedledee and Tweedledum), Michael Sheen (White Rabbit), Alan Rickman (Caterpillar), Stephen Fry (Cheshire Cat) and Barbara Windsor (Dormouse). At its release, critics were torn between loving the computer-generated imagery (CGI) and hating that it “sacrifices the book’s minimal narrative coherence—and much of its heart.” Many fans of the original Alice complained the film ruined Lewis Carroll’s work. Having said that, Alice in Wonderland (2010) won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design.

The Alice in Wonderland franchise was initially aimed at children, but in the 1960s, the stories began to appeal to artists, particularly those affiliated with the Surrealist movement. Surrealism, as a cultural movement, developed in the aftermath of the Second World War. Artists within the group aimed to change people’s perceptions of the world and explored the desires of the unconscious mind. The founder of the movement, André Breton (1896-1966), claimed: “everyone has the power to accompany an ever more beautiful Alice to Wonderland.” Encouraged by this, several Surrealist artists used Lewis Carroll’s dreamlike characters and storylines as inspiration for their creations.

One Surrealist artist, Salvador Dalí (1904-89), provided illustrations for a limited edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1969. These illustrations are a stark contrast to Tenniel’s original images. Each full-page artwork needs studying carefully to understand and appreciate the scene. Many contained typical Surrealist motifs, such as a melting clock, as seen in The Mad Tea-Party illustration. Alice appears as a stick-figure-like girl wearing a full-length skirt, playing with a skipping rope. On each page, Alice differs in size but is usually tiny in comparison to other elements in the artwork.

The Alice stories and themes also inspired the Psychedelic movement in the mid-1960s. In the United Kingdom, artists combined Wonderland with politics and social issues, and in the US, the stories inspired hallucinogenic artwork and multi-sensory experiences involving sound, images and movement.

Joseph McHugh (b.1939), the founder of the poster design company East Totem West, created kaleidoscopic prints based on characters from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. One features the White Rabbit standing on a chequered floor surrounded by objects from the story. Yet, all these elements are difficult to see due to the psychedelic pattern of blues, reds, greens and browns. Through his work, McHugh aimed to appeal to the hippie and freethinker generation of the 1960s.

Whilst Wonderland lent itself to the more abstract forms of art, it also appealed to more traditional artists, such as the Ruralists. Ruralism aimed to revive and update former painting styles, such as those by English landscape artists and the Pre-Raphaelites. The movement wanted to focus on typically English themes, including cricket and classic novels by English authors. They particularly admired the works of Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) and music by Edward Elgar (1857-1934).

Pop Artist Peter Blake (b.1932) and his contemporaries formed the Brotherhood of Ruralists in 1975 after becoming disillusioned with London and their former art styles. Their aims were “to paint about love, beauty, joy, sentiment and magic. We still believe in painting with oil paint on canvas, putting the picture in the frame and hopefully, that someone will like it, buy it and hang it on their wall to enjoy it.”

After forming the Ruralists, Blake’s work frequently included literary subjects, such as works by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Lewis Carroll. During the 1970s, Blake produced a series of illustrations called Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. Rather than replicate the Victorian-style illustrations by Tenniel, Blake painted Alice as a modern (seventies) girl. In one picture, titled ‘Well, this is grand!’ said Alice, Queen Alice stares out at the audience while a typically English country garden unfolds behind her.

During the 1950s and 60s, commercial artists used Alice, Wonderland and other characters to advertise brands and products. The release of the Disney film increased the popularity of Alice in Wonderland and companies fought to partner with the franchise. Sweet manufacturer Barratt’s used the Disney illustrations to advertise their Christmas crackers, and Ford Motor Company used coloured versions of Tenniel’s drawings to promote their new Falcon Wagons. The Irish brewery Guinness also partnered with the Alice franchise – one of the most peculiar pairings. The company hired artists to produce illustrations that loosely resembled Tenniel’s illustrations, combined with some Lewis Carroll-esque text. One poster reads: “He thought he saw a Dome that held Discoveries galore; He looked again and saw it was A Guinness by Thames Shore. ‘We know it’s Good for You,’ he said, ‘Need man discover more?'”

Although Tenniel and Disney created the two most popular visual versions of Alice and the other characters in Wonderland, every artist and designer has different visions and competes to develop new interpretations. This is particularly the case in theatrical and dance performances. The costumes and scenery need to stick close enough to Carroll’s original descriptions for the audience to recognise the familiar story, but they cannot be copies of previous designs. As technology has developed, the stage settings and special effects have become very ambitious, but there continues to be the issue of making fantastical costumes practical for the stage.

The V&A exhibition showcases several costumes worn on stage in various performances. Since Disney’s interpretation of the story, Alice is frequently depicted in blue, which many costume designers continue to replicate. To stand out from other stage shows, some designers look at Tenniel’s original illustrations, such as those in the young children’s book The Nursery Alice (1890), in which the main character wears a yellow dress. This is the colour the designers used for the costume in Alice, an opera performed in Hamburg in 1992.

Off the stage, fashion designers have used Alice in Wonderland as their inspiration for new clothing lines and one-off pieces on the catwalk. Designers include Christian Dior (1905-57), Vivienne Westwood (b.1944), Viktor&Rolf, Thom Browne (b.1965) and various Japanese-punk fashion houses.

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Visiting the Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser exhibition at the V&A is almost like falling down a rabbit hole. From beginning to end, the installations look as wonderfully creative and psychedelic as Wonderland. Each section represents a different part of the Alice stories as well as various interpretations over the past century and a half. The further into the exhibition one travels, the “curiouser” it becomes until you start believing the Cheshire Cat that “We’re all mad here.”

The exhibition has more value for adults, who will appreciate the wealth of information and the opportunity to remember the stories and characters from childhood. Of course, it will also appeal to children, who will enjoy searching for the White Rabbit, watching film clips, and playing with fun-house mirrors and other interactive displays. The lights, sounds and twisting paths throughout the exhibition make visitors feel bewildered as Alice when she first entered Wonderland. You will likely exit the museum feeling entirely bonkers. “But I’ll tell you a secret: All the best people are.”

Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser is on now until Friday 31st December 2021. Tickets for the week ahead are released every Tuesday at 12.00. Adult tickets cost £20 but children under 12 can visit for free.

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Picasso and Paper

Self-portrait, 1918

“To this day, I remember him lost in a mountain of papers.”
– Jaume Sabartés

Pablo Picasso was one of the most influential artists in the 20th century and is remembered for founding the Cubist movement. His paintings are recognised by his radical style and characteristics of Surrealism, although he was never part of the Surrealist movement. Yet, there was so much more to Picasso’s talents that have been overshadowed by his revolutionary artistic accomplishments. This year (2020), the Royal Academy of Arts brings Picasso’s fascination with paper to the foreground, displaying more than 300 works that span his 80-year career, many of which are hard to believe are his.

“Some day there will undoubtedly be a science… which will seek to learn more about man in general through the study of creative man. I often think about such a science, and I want to leave to posterity a documentation that will be as complete as possible.”
– Picasso

It appears Picasso kept everything – drawings, prints, designs, photographs, manuscripts, poems, doodles on newspapers, ideas scribbled on scrap paper – and the Royal Academy have sorted through the items to create a chronological exhibition entitled Picasso and Paper. Unlike the exhibition Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy at Tate Modern in 2018, which focused on a single year, the Royal Academy attempts to look at every aspect of Picasso’s career. By studying the diversity and range of Picasso’s use of paper, both in preparatory works and final outcomes, the exhibition reveals the mobility of his intelligence and provides a deeper understanding of his work.

Dove and Dog, Picasso age 8

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, named after a series of saints and relatives, was born in Málaga, Spain in 1881 to Don José Ruiz y Blasco (1836-1913) and María Picasso y López. He began showing an artistic talent from a young age and his mother claimed his first word was “piz”, short of lápiz, the Spanish word for pencil. Picasso’s father was a painter, specialising in still life, landscape and pigeons, and gave Picasso his first art lessons in 1888. In 1891, Picasso attended his father’s ornamental drawing classes at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in A Coruña. By the age of ten, Picasso had surpassed his father in artistic talent.

The family moved to Barcelona in 1895 following the death of Picasso’s younger sister Conchita from Diptheria. Despite the sad time, Picasso enrolled at the School of Fine Arts, being admitted to the advanced class at the young age of 13. At 16, his father decided to send him to Madrid’s Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, although he stopped attending after a few days, preferring to study the paintings in the Prado.

Seated Woman with a Shawl, 1899

The Woman in the Blue Hat (Jane Avril), 1901

Academically, Picasso was a realist painter, however, from 1897 he began to show elements of Symbolism, adding unnatural colours to his work. In 1900, Picasso made his first trip to Paris where he shared an apartment with the French Poet Max Jacob (1876-1944), however, severe poverty forced him to return to Madrid the following year.

In 1901, Picasso was heavily impacted by the suicide of his friend Carlos Casamegas (1880-1901). Having met in 1899, they quickly became friends and travelled across Spain together. Casamegas went to Paris with Picasso, however, there were signs his mental health was suffering. It is believed Casamegas shot himself after a rejected marriage proposal.

Casamegas’ death led to the development of what is now known as Picasso’s “Blue Period”. As well as his friend’s death, the works produced during this period (1901-04) express his feelings of loneliness and life in poverty. The majority of his paintings at this time were rendered in shades of blue and blue-green. Subjects included sad-looking women with children, prostitutes, beggars and his recently deceased friend.

Woman with Lock of Hair, 1903

La Vie (Life), 1903

Self-Portrait, 1901

The Royal Academy displays pen and ink studies Picasso made when planning his painting La Vie. The sketches reveal he originally intended to include himself in the painting as though it were set in his studio. By studying these papers, we learn how Picasso approached a painting by experimenting with ideas before applying paint to canvas. By the time he started painting, the figure of himself had become a likeness of his friend Casagemas.

The Frugal Meal, 1904

During his Blue Period, Picasso was introduced to the technique of etching by the Catalan artist Ricard Canals (1876-1931). This printmaking technique, also known as drypoint, involves scratching very fine lines onto a copper plate. The plate is then inked and laid face-down on a piece of paper, which is then squeezed through a printing press. By this process, the image is transferred onto the paper.

Picasso’s debut etching is entitled The Frugal Meal, which depicts an emaciated blind man and sighted woman sitting at a table. A very sparse meal is laid out in front of them, which is not enough for one person let alone two. Blindness was another key theme during Picasso’s Blue Period.

When Picasso made his first engraving, he was also living in poverty and could not afford to purchase a copper plate. Instead, he scraped down a previously used plate, which resulted in a few unintended lines in the background of his etching.

Boy with Cattle, 1906

Head of a Woman, in Profile, 1905

In 1904, Picasso returned to France, leaving his Blue Period behind in Barcelona. Inspired by French performers at the Cirque Madrano, clowns, dancers, acrobats and harlequins, Picasso began a new period: his Rose Period (1904-06). Tinged with the colour pink, these paintings expressed his melancholy feelings towards the lives of these performers. Nonetheless, the pinks and oranges have a much lighter tone than his Blue Period.

As well as painting, Picasso continued to produce etchings and drypoints, culminating in his first significant series, the Saltimbanques Suite. These included portraits of performers and scenes at the circus.

Some critics believe Picasso’s change from Blue to Rose was sparked by his relationship with Fernande Olivier (1881-1966) who was a French artist and model that Picasso met in Paris. They became lovers and their relationship lasted seven years. In 1906, Picasso and Olivier spent the summer at Gósol in the Spanish Pyrenees, which inspired another painting theme. Sticking to the red and orange tones, Picasso began painting the landscape and locals in a stylised way, moving further away from the realist art of his youth. With Olivier as a willing model, he also became more interested in representing the female nude.

Study for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907

The Royal Academy devotes one room of the exhibition to Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, which he painted in 1907, although they only have a digital reproduction of the final artwork. Around the room are examples of studies and preparatory sketches Picasso produced when planning what would become one of the most revolutionary paintings in the history of art. His sketchbooks suggest the composition was originally going to include a sailor and a medical student in a brothel, however, the final result only featured women.

At first, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon may appear to be a continuation of his Rose Period, however, it was actually the beginning of his African Art and Primitivism Period (1907-09). Picasso had become fascinated with Iberian sculptures that were produced between the Bronze Age and the Roman Conquest. Iberian art, mostly sculptures, was largely inspired by the Greeks, the Phoenicians and Oriental countries and tended to use blocks of shapes rather than carefully sculpted realistic dimensions. Picasso liked this idea of simplification and experimented with it in his sketchbooks.

In 1907, Picasso visited the ethnographic museum at Palais du Trocadéro where he saw and was impressed by African artefacts. This encouraged him to continue to experiment and simplify his drawings into abstract, geometric shapes. Picasso began to reject the teaching of Western art, particularly in terms of perspective, squeezing scenes together into compressed spaces.

Picasso’s sketchbooks are an invaluable resource, providing insight into his transformation from realism to abstract. As time went on, his drawings became flatter, rigid and geometric like the ancient Iberian sculptures. The African influence is obvious in the mask-like faces some of his characters portray.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was not publically displayed until 1916, partly because of the shock and revulsion his new style received. Picasso’s rival Henri Matisse (1869-1954) initially assumed this “savage” style was a hoax and he was not the only artist to make snide comments. Fortunately, the French painter Georges Braque (1882-1963) saw potential in Picasso’s new direction.

Head of a Woman, 1909

Man with a Guitar, 1911

From 1909, Braque began working closely with Picasso, exploring the directions Picasso’s latest style could go. Together they developed what we now know as Cubism, however, this is a broad term for the style that quickly spread across Paris and then Europe. Art critic Louis Vauxcelles (1870-1934) coined the word “cubism”, however, Picasso’s work can be separated into Analytic Cubism and Synthetic Cubism.

Analytic Cubism (1909-12) is the style of painting Picasso and Braque developed, which involved using monochrome or neutral colours. Rather than painting what they could see, they mentally took apart the objects and analysed their shapes and forms, then put them backed together like a jumbled jigsaw puzzle.

This style was not restricted to painting, for instance, Head of a Woman, which Picasso sculpted and cast in bronze. The woman is Fernande Olivier, however, rather than producing a likeness, Picasso analysed the form and shape of her head and facial features. In several sketches, Picasso explored the structure of Olivier’s appearance from various angles, fusing different sections and viewpoints together. The final result was based on several sketches merged together.

Violin, 1912

Synthetic Cubism (1912-19) was a further development of the genre made primarily by Picasso. Rather than painting, it involved the use of paper, often in fragments, which were pasted together to make a collage. By using pins, glue, newspaper, wrapping paper and wallpaper, Picasso began making papier collé (pasted paper) paintings by adding elements of collage to his paintings or drawings. This then developed into entire compositions made from paper.

Picasso’s favourite items to depict in this style appear to have been pipes, glasses, guitars or violins. These objects could easily be flattened and recognised through geometric shapes. Occasionally, Picasso would make three-dimensional models of the instruments, however, they retained their Cubist style and would not have functioned properly had they been real.

The outbreak of World War I temporarily separated Picasso and Braque, the latter who was called to join the French army, and Picasso’s artwork became more sombre. This was partly due to the devestation of war but mostly due to the death of his new lover. Olivier and Picasso had split and he had become infatuated with Eva Gouel (real name Marcelle Humbert). Many of his Cubist works expressed his love for Eva and he was devestated when she died from an illness in 1915 at the age of 30.

With his friends gone to war, Picasso sought out other social circles and became involved with Serge Diaghilev’s (1872-1929) Ballets Russes. Picasso was commissioned to design the costumes and set for Jean Cocteau’s (1889-1963) Parade, with music by Erik Satie (1866-1925). The musical score lasted fifteen minutes and involved the sounds of horns and engines to represent the chaos of modern life.

Cubism was still at the forefront of Picasso’s art, therefore, it is no surprise that his designs for Parade were influenced by this. Complicated costumes merged the elements Satie was trying to evoke through his music, including, car horns, high-rise buildings and typewriters.

Whilst working on Parade, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova (1891-1955) who was a ballerina in Diaghilev’s troupe. They spent their honeymoon near the Bay of Biscay in the Summer of 1918 then returned to Paris. Through his wife, Picasso attended many high society events and experienced the life of the rich, although he was still rather poor – his rent was paid by his art dealer Paul Rosenburg (1881-1959).

Igor Stravinksy, 1920

Picasso and Olga had a son, Paulo, however, their relationship was impacted by their conflicting ways of life. Olga preferred social propriety, whereas Picasso wished to retain his Bohemian lifestyle. Nonetheless, Picasso continued to work with Diaghilev’s troupe and collaborated with Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) on his 1920 ballet Pulcinella.

Due to marital conflicts, Picasso began a secret affair with 17-year old Marie-Thérèse Walter (1909-1977). Picasso wished to divorce his wife but this would result in Olga receiving half his wealth, therefore, the couple formally separated instead. As a result, Picasso was legally married until his wife’s death in 1955 and could not marry his new lover. Marie-Thérèse lived in hope of eventual marriage, which never happened, and gave birth to Picasso’ daughter Maya out of wedlock.

Head of a Woman, 1921

Girl in a Hat with Her Hands Clasped, 1921

After the First World War, many artists became a part of the “return to order” movement that swept across Europe. The upheaval of the war caused people to reflect on what life used to be like and for artists, such as Picasso, this involved attempting to recreate the art and culture of classical antiquity. Thus, Neoclassicism was born.

This period, which lasted from 1919 until 1924, is largely omitted from Picasso’s portfolio and visitors to the Royal Academy’s exhibition may be surprised by the abrupt change in style. Picasso made his first trip to Italy in 1917 where he came across many examples of classicism. By using a similar range of media that classical painters used, such as red chalk, and pastels, Picasso produced exaggerated figures, emphasising the round facial features rather than cutting them up as he would have done in a cubist portrait.

Guitar, 1926

Visage (Face of Marie-Thérèse), 1928

Sculpture, Head of a Woman, 1931-2

Picasso’s Neoclassical period was short-lived and he soon returned to his former Cubist style. He continued to collage together different materials, including paper, string, cloth and nails, to make the shape of an object, such as a guitar. By 1925, however, he had caught the eye of another group of artists, the Surrealists. Whilst Picasso never officially joined the movement, his work inspired the leader André Breton (1896-1966) who declared him “one of us”. Picasso was invited to participate in the first Surrealist group exhibition, although he chose to display examples of his Cubist work.

A handful of sketchbooks suggest Picasso was influenced by Surrealist art, although he did not find the manifesto of the group appealing. His series of constructed guitars is similar to works or “found objects” by Surrealist artists and his style of line drawing underwent a transformation. Picasso began experimenting with irrational scale and morphing segments of an image together.

His relationship with Marie-Thérèse inspired many of Picasso’s works, particularly of an erotic nature. She appears in over 40 of his supposedly sexualised drawings of a woman’s head, which led to a sculpture of a woman with an irrationally large nose. A lithograph of Marie-Thérèse’s visage proves the nose is not based on any semblance of truth.

Minotaur, 1933

Minotaur and the Dead Mare before a Cave, with a girl in a Veil, 1936

Minotaur, No.1, 1933

In the early 1930s, Picasso developed an alter ego that he used in his art to express issues in his personal life. This was the half-man, half-bull, lustful minotaur from Greek mythology. Picasso identified with its strength and masculinity and it also alluded back to his childhood and love of Spanish bull-fighting.

The minotaur was known for its ability to overpower women and Picasso attempted to demonstrate this in his drawings, mostly of a sexual nature. The women in his artworks often resembled the women in his life at the time: Olga, Marie-Thérèse and a new lover, Dora Maar (1907-97). The violence of his subject matter may be reflective of the psychological tensions between Picasso and these women.

La Femmes à leur toilette, 1937

The Weeping Woman. VI, 1937

Seated Woman (Dora), 1938

As well as issues in his personal life, Picasso was affected by the Great Depression and the Spanish Civil War. Up until now, Picasso was against mixing politics and art, however, the 1936 uprising of the fascist General Francisco Franco (1892-1975) changed this. Picasso produced a series of etchings showing Franco brutally murdering people.

At this time, Picasso was asked to paint a mural for the Republic’s pavilion at the Paris World Fair of 1937. Initially, Picasso explored the idea of portraying an artist’s studio, however, after the German bombing of the Basque city of Guernica on 26th April 1937, which resulted in hundreds of innocent deaths, Picasso changed his line of thinking. Guernica has become Picasso’s most famous work and the evolution of the painting can be seen in his sketchbooks and through photographs taken by his lover Dora Maar. Whilst considered to be one of the most powerful war paintings, not everyone understands the meaning of the different elements. Picasso, however, refused to explain, saying, “It isn’t up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them.”

After the World Fair, Guernica was displayed as the centrepiece of an exhibition that toured Scandinavia and England, alongside paintings by Matisse and Braque. When Franco won the Spanish Civil War, the painting was sent to the United States to help raise funds for Spanish refugees. It was displayed in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, where a major retrospective of Picasso’s principal works was also held.

Meanwhile, Picasso continued to depict the grief and anxiety caused by the war, particularly in his Weeping Woman series, which was modelled on Dora Maar. A large collage of cut-out wallpaper, which was eventually produced as a tapestry twenty years later, is believed to show the same women Picasso depicted in Guernica. Femmes à leur toilette contains three figures that some have identified as Olga (left), Dora (centre) and Marie-Thérèse (right).

Study for Man with a Sheep, 1943

Man with a Sheep, 1943

When the Second World War broke out, Picasso decided to remain in Paris during the German occupation. His paintings did not conform to Nazi ideals, therefore, his home was often searched by the Gestapo. On one occasion, an officer found a photograph of Guernica and asked if Picasso had done it. The artist replied, “No, you did.”

Sketchbooks from the period show Picasso continued with his paintings but, most interestingly, designed sculptures. Bronze casting was outlawed by the Germans, however, Picasso managed to use bronze smuggled in by the French Resistance. Sketches for Man with a Sheep show the man getting progressively older until Picasso settled on a thin, balding man. The sculpture is believed to be a response to the war, particularly the lives of innocent civilians caught up in the lives of soldiers and weapons. The sketches contribute as much emotion as the final sculpture. In an interview with Picasso, his drawing technique and medium were likened to coagulated blood.

As another means of expressing his emotions, Picasso began composing poetry. Between the beginning of the Second World War and 1959, Picasso wrote at least 300 poems. The Royal Academy displays pages containing his poetry, illustrations and scribbles, the latter which are as expressive as his words.

Portrait of Françoise, 1946

In 1944, after the liberation of Paris, Picasso grew tired of Dora and sought the affection of a young art student, Françoise Gilot (b.1921). Although she was forty years younger than Picasso, they began to live together and had two children, Claude (b.1947) and Paloma (b.1949). Françoise later described her relationship with Picasso as abusive and claimed he had affairs with other women at the same time, for example, Geneviève Laporte (1926-2012), who featured in many portraits. Françoise eventually left Picasso, taking their children with her.

Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, 1863

Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, 1960

During his turbulent relationship with Françoise and other lovers, Picasso returned to admiring the artists he had looked up to as a young painter. He was particularly fascinated with Édouard Manet’s (1832-83) Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the grass), which had sparked controversy and was ill-received when first displayed in 1836. “When I see Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, I think there will be trouble later on,” noted Picasso. The painting reveals a nude woman picnicking with two fully dressed men.

Picasso recorded his response to the painting in his sketchbooks, making over 150 drawings of the subject in his own style. Twenty-seven of these became paintings and others inspired watercolours, linocuts and three-dimensional cardboard cutouts. Picasso also reproduced works by other artists, Eugène Delacroix’s (1798-1863) Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement (Women of Algiers in Their Apartment).

Jacqueline Dressed as a Bride Full Face 1, 1961

Head of a Woman, 1962

Self-Portrait, 1972

In his 70s, Picasso made and painted ceramics at the Madoura Pottery in Vallauris on the French Riviera where he met his next lover, Jacqueline Roque (1927-86). He began seeing Jacqueline before his relationship with Françoise had ended, who was plotting to marry Picasso to secure the rights of her children as legitimate heirs of the artist. As a means of revenge, Picasso married Jacqueline in secret in 1961.

By this time, Picasso was an international celebrity and lived in a Gothic mansion with Jacqueline and could afford luxury villas in the south of France. Nonetheless, he continued working and accepting commissions, the majority of which were sculptures. The Royal Academy, however, continues to focus on his works involving paper, such as sketches, prints and cuts outs.

Picasso had the ability to manipulate paper in new and unusual ways, for example, a free-standing paper sculpture of Head of a Woman. The woman, presumably Jacqueline, was initially drawn in pencil, then cut and folded so that she could stand upright. The image looks similar to versions Picasso painted on canvas in the past.

Towards the end of the exhibition, the Royal Academy shows a clip from the documentary Le Mystère Picasso by Henri-Georges Clouzot (1907-77), which captures on film the processes Picasso went through when producing a work of art. What may start as one subject (for instance, a chicken) may become a different subject entirely (for instance, a woman’s face).

Picasso’s final works were a complex mix of styles, however, due to his age, many dismissed them as slapdash works of an artist past his prime. By then, he was in his 90s and very aware of his own mortality. This is evidenced in one of his final self-portraits in which he depicted himself as a skull with terrified eyes and a mouth tied shut (either that or he had not aged well!).

Regardless of how they were received, Picasso continued producing artworks until his death on 8th April 1973. He was entertaining friends with his wife when he suffered pulmonary oedema and heart failure. Whilst Picasso’s past lovers had reported violence and abuse, his relationship with Jacqueline lasted until his final breath. Devastated by his death, Jacqueline shot herself nine years later, passing away at the age of 59. Marie-Thérèse, who Picasso had continued to support financially, killed herself four years after Picasso’s death.

Picasso and Paper reveals the side of Picasso that has been hidden from the world for so long. Everyone knows of his abstract portraits and his cubist paintings, however, his early years, collages and sketchbooks are rarely exhibited. By working chronologically through his life, the Royal Academy has focused more on Picasso’s process rather than his outcomes. Some people may argue that his work appears random, haphazard and thrown-together, however, this exhibition proves a lot more thought went into his work than it might appear.

The exhibition Picasso and Paper is open until 13th April 2020. Tickets cost between £18 and £22 but Friends of the RA can visit for free. Visitors are advised to allow two hours for their visit.

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Dora Maar

The Weeping Woman – Picasso

Dora Maar, also known as Picasso’s “Weeping Woman”, is mostly remembered for being the surrealist artist’s muse and lover. This year, Tate Modern has put together the most comprehensive retrospective of Dora Maar ever held, allowing her to be seen as a photographer and artist in her own right. The exhibition explores the breadth of Maar’s career, encompassing commercial photography, documentary projects and painting.

Dora Maar was born Henriette Theodora Markovitch in Paris on 22nd November 1907, although she was mostly known as Dora. Her father Joseph Markovitch (1874–1969) was an architect from Croatia but settled in Paris with his French wife Louise-Julie Voisin (1877–1942) in 1896. From 1910, Maar’s early life was mostly spent in Buenos Aires, Argentina where her father had obtained a commission from the Austria-Hungary Embassy. Although his work did not make him particularly wealthy, his achievements were recognised by Emperor Francis Joseph I (1830-1916).

The Markovitch family returned to Paris in 1926 where Dora enrolled at the Central Union of Decorative Arts. She also attended the newly opened l’Ecole Nationale de la Cinématographie et la Photographie (School of Photography). Following this, she enrolled at the École des Beaux-Artes and the Académie Julian. Whilst she trained in both fine art and photography, she decided photography was the way forward because it provided greater stability than painting in the commercial world.

In 1930, Dora met the Hungarian-French photographer Brassaï (1899-1984) with whom she began sharing a darkroom. Gyula Halász, who went by the pseudonym Brassaï, was an internationally known photographer between the two world wars who also worked as a sculptor, medalist, writer and filmmaker. He photographed many of his friends, who included the artists Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Alberto Giacometti.

Untitled (Fashion Photograph, Evening Gown by Jacques Heim for Madame Jacques Heim)

Dora also worked with Harry Osip Meerson (1911-91), a Polish-born French fashion photographer and, during 1930, she set up a photography studio with Pierre Kéfer on the Rue Campagne-Première on the outskirts of Paris. Kéfer had been a decorator and set designer for Jean Epstein’s (1897-1953) film The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), however, the studio mainly focused on photography for advertisements and fashion magazines. Dora called working with Kéfer her “worldly period” because it introduced her to many glamorous clientele.

Mont Saint Michel, Cloister, Southern Gallery

Dora’s first significant commission was for Germain Bazin (1901-90), an art historian, who wanted photographs to illustrate his manuscript about a monastery on Mont Saint Michel island in Normandy. Seventy-two photos were needed in total, of which Dora supplied thirty-seven. Unfortunately, she was only credited for six.

It was around this time that Dora decided to officially change her public name, declaring in a 1932 bulletin that Henriette Markovitch, “artist-painter”, had transformed into Dora Maar, photographer. Many of the studio’s photographs were signed “Kéfer-Dora-Maar”, however, Dora was usually the sole author.

Kéfer-Dora-Maar’s first fashion photography commission was for Jacques Heim (1899-1967) who ran a maison de couture. Maar’s job was to photograph Heim’s latest clothing designs for the fashion house’s magazine. This was Maar’s first taste of haute couture, which led to commissions from other fashion designers, such as Coco Chanel (1883-1971), Jeanne Lanvin (1867-1946) and Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973). Maar continued to work with Heim during the 1950s, producing textile designs and logos rather than photographs.

The Years Lie in Wait for You

Kéfer-Dora-Maar dissolved in 1935 and Maar established her own studio in central Paris where she took on independent commissions. It was around this time that her style of work also began to change, becoming more experimental, for instance, using scissors and glue to turn her photographs into collages. Maar also produced photomontages, which involved sandwiching two negatives together and printing them as one image. An example of this is The Years Lie in Wait for You, published in 1935 as an advertisement for an anti-ageing cream. The image is made up of a photograph of a spider’s web and a close-up of Maar’s friend Nusch Éluard (1906-45). Eluard, who was born Maria Benz, was a stage performer who regularly modelled for surrealist artists.

Assia

Another model both Maar and other artists used was Assia Granatouroff (1911-82). Born in Ukraine, Granatouroff moved to France at a young age and trained to be a textile designer. In her early twenties, she decided to become a film actress but needed money to pay for acting classes. By modelling, often for nudes, Granatouroff managed to scrape together the necessary funds. Maar’s photographs of Grantouroff experimented with lighting and angles and re-imagined the classical depiction of the nude. Many of the photographs were circulated in art publications and erotic magazines.

Headstand, Barcelona

Beggar woman, Barcelona

Maar did not spend all her time working in a studio. Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 in the United States, Europe was subjected to the worst economic depression of modern times. Maar and her peers wished to document the devastating effects of the crisis throughout Europe and, without being commissioned, she travelled to the Costa Brava in Catalonia, followed by Barcelona.

Maar explored the city, documenting both the landscape and the people she saw. None of her photographs were staged, instead, they were captured quickly on her Rolleiflex camera. This camera was portable and could be held at waist height, allowing the photographer to take rapid, spur-of-the-moment photographs.

In Barcelona, Maar saw a mix of scenes that revealed some of the worst-off areas. Photographs include a beggar woman, a blind street pedlar and a group of blind musicians, all of whom were trying to earn money in order to survive. On the other hand, Maar captured shots of children playing and someone doing a handstand on the beach, which suggests that not everything was doom and gloom.

Girl in doorway

The Grimace

Back in Paris, Maar continued to document the effects of the economic depression, particularly in the area known as “La Zone”. In 1844, a 3-4 kilometre strip of land in the 13th arrondissement of Paris was transformed into a military defence zone. By the 1930s, it was no longer needed and poor communities began to move into the disused buildings. Eventually, around 40,000 people were living there, although they were forcibly moved before the beginning of the Second World War.

Maar captured the life in “La Zone”, showing dilapidated buildings, working men and women, and children. These photographs contrasted with others she took in the city, which revealed well-dressed people going about their everyday lives.

Pearly King Collecting Money for the Empire Day

Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, London

Disabled war veteran begging beside miniature tin boat, London

In February 1934, Maar visited London where she documented various locations in the City of London and the East End. The photographs were included in an exhibition at Galeries Van den Berghe in Paris under the name of Kéfer-Dora-Maar, however, Maar was the sole photographer.

The photographs taken in London continued to reveal the state of lives during the economic depression. War veterans begging on the street, Lottery Ticket dealers and ragpickers were competing for customers to earn a wage. A man with a placard stating, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2) suggests that some people believed the social and economic situation in Europe was God-driven.

To try to assist traders who had fallen on hard times, “Coster Kings and Queens” were elected to collect money on the streets. This evolved into the tradition of Pearly Kings and Queens, which continues today. Maar photographed one Pearly King collecting money for Empire Air Day, an annual air show held at Royal Air Force stations across Britain. “The idea of Empire Air Day is that the public should be enabled to see the Royal Air Force at its everyday work.” (Anthony Muirhead MP) Maar’s photograph shows the Pearly King dressed in imitation 20th-century high society fashion, decorated with pearly beads.

Affected by what she had seen in Barcelona, London and Paris, Maar signed her name on the Appel à la lutte (Call to the Struggle) manifesto by the surrealist poet André Breton (1896-1966) and screenwriter Louis Chavance (1907-79). The manifesto had been written as a response to political riots by the extreme far-right and, at the time, Maar considered herself to be on the far-left. Maar was also inspired to join Breton’s anti-fascist movement Contre-Attaque, which he led with the philosopher Georges Bataille (1897-1962). Alongside this, she attended and documented the rehearsals and performances of the leftist theatre troupe Groupe Octobre.

After the Rain

Musical instrument shop window with re ection of the Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs Church, Paris

Man looking inside a pavement inspection door, London

Kangaroo, London

Carousel at night

By associating herself with the political side of surrealism, Maar began to adopt the movement in her photography. The Surrealist Movement, which was predominantly led by Breton and Paul Éluard aimed to transform the art world, refusing to conform to constrictions put in place by modern society. Surrealism embraced the power of the unconscious mind, creating impossible, dreamlike imagery that were far from reality.

At first, it was not certain how photography could benefit the Surrealist Movement, therefore, Maar continued to photograph scenes around the city. Her way of thinking, however, had been changed and she began to seek out the stranger areas of historic cities. Whilst in London, Maar photographed a man looking inside a pavement inspection door, which was not a usual sight to see. She also came across a wire sculpture of a kangaroo on the pavement.

During this period, Maar became more experimental with the way she took photographs. Her documentary photography produced quick snapshots of city life, however, by focusing on dramatic angles and cropping the image, Maar was able to construct a more disorienting perspective. Gradually, Maar’s photographs leant more and more towards surrealism.

Portrait of Ubu

Hand-Shell

Danger

Cavalier

Alongside Man Ray (1890-1976), Raoul Ubac (1910-85) and Hans Bellmer (1902-75), Maar became one of the few photographers to be included in surrealist exhibitions. She continued to photograph objects from interesting angles, which distorted their appearance. This method resulted in Portrait of Ubu, which was named after Alfred Jarry’s (1873-1907) absurdist play Ubu Roi (King Ubu, 1895). The subject matter has yet to be identified, although the most popular suggestion is an armadillo foetus. Talking about the photo in 1994, Maar said, “It’s a real animal, but I don’t want to say which one, because it would strip it of its mystery.”

To add to the surrealist effects of her photography, Maar returned to the method of photomontage, cutting and pasting together two or more photographs to make a new image. Maar took elements from her own photographs and those of other photographers, as well as images from 20th-century publications. Rather than leaving the result in a collage format, Maar photographed the cutouts to create a seamless image. Hand-shell, for example, was produced by combining a couple of photographs to make it appear as though a hand was protruding from a shell.

Pablo Picasso on the beach of Juan-les-Pins

The Conversation

Portrait of Pablo Picasso

Dora Maar reached the height of her career in the winter of 1935-6 when she met Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Picasso, on the other hand, was at the worst time of his life, having not produced any artwork for several months. Their first meeting took place on the set of Jean Renoir’s film The Crime of Monsieur Lange where Maar was taking promotional photographs. On this occasion, Maar and Picasso may not have spoken, however, they were formally introduced a few days later by their mutual friend Paul Éluard.

Between 1936 and 1938, Maar and Picasso spent the summers in the South of France with various friends, where Maar took photographs of Picasso on the beach. Back in Paris, Maar invited Picasso to her studio to photograph his portrait and, in return, allowed him to paint her, which he did many times throughout their decade long relationship.

Picasso encouraged Maar to paint alongside her photography career. Adopting his style, Maar produced a portrait of Picasso, displacing the facial features and adding elements of cubism. Viewers could be forgiven for mistaking many of Maar’s works as Picasso’s since she often replicated his methods.

The Conversation, painted in 1937, addresses Maar’s feelings about Picasso’s ongoing relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter (1909-77) with whom he had a daughter Maya. Despite openly being a couple with Maar, Picasso refused to break off his relationship with Walter and made them both fight for his love. It is also known that Picasso physically abused Maar and used her as a living depiction of pain and suffering in his portraits.

In 1937, Picasso was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government to create a mural for the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Paris World’s Fair. Initially, he spent a few months half-heartedly painting in his studio, however, after the bombing of Guernica on 26th April, he was inspired to make the violence and chaos of that event of the Spanish Civil War the subject of the painting.

From 11th May to 4th June, Maar documented Picasso’ progress through photographs as he tackled the large canvas in his studio. The photographs were commissioned by the art journal Cahiers d’art who wanted to “preserve the metamorphosis of a picture”. It has been suggested Maar’s presence in the studio may have influenced the artwork. Picasso included the silhouette of an electric light, which historians have speculated was inspired by the light Maar used to illuminate the canvas for her photographs.

In an interview recorded in 1990, Maar revealed that she had helped paint small parts of Guernica so that there would be significant progress in her next photograph. She also revealed one of the female figures in the composition was intended to be her.

Not long after Guernica was completed, Picasso painted Maar as the Weeping Woman. He produced over thirty studies of Maar in this guise but Maar believed it was never intended to be a portrait. It was her belief that it was another of Picasso’s metaphors for the suffering during the Spanish War.

Self-Portrait

Still Life

La Grand Range

In 1942, Maar bought a new studio in Paris where she focused on painting rather than photography. Picasso continued to encourage her to paint in the cubist style, which is evident in some of her still life paintings. Some of her still lifes were exhibited at Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris in 1944. As their relationship began to break down, however, Maar’s artwork began to take a new direction. Inspired by the river Seine, which was a stone’s throw from her home, she began to focus on landscapes.

Life during the early 1940s was not kind to Maar. Firstly, she was subjected to an abusive relationship, which coincided with her father returning to Argentina. After Maar left Picasso, she had to face the sudden deaths of her mother and close friend, Nusch Éluard. It is no wonder she spent some time in Saint Mandé, a psychiatric hospital, presumably being treated for depression. Fortunately, she was able to recover and focus on her painting, including a self-portrait that she gave to Doctor Baron, a specialist in neuro-ophthalmology.

“These landscapes, the result of [Maar’s] recent change of style, are marked by a sensitive and very individual talent … vastness, loneliness and, above all, their sense of place.”
– John Russell, The Times

Maar’s change in artistic style was noticed by art critics at the London Leicester Galleries in 1958. Whilst they are landscapes made up of washes of paint, critics remarked on the sense of isolation and overwhelming vastness, which indicated Maar’s feelings of loneliness and unhappiness after the loss of her lover, her parents and her friends.

Nonetheless, Maar was able to work through her negative feelings and continued producing art. During the latter 1940s, Maar spent half her time in Paris and the other half in Ménerbes in the south of France. She developed a friendship with the French poet André du Bouchet (1924-2001) who offered her the opportunity to collaborate on some work. In 1956, Maar supplied a set of engravings for his anthology Mountain Soil, which involved developing a new technique and art style.

At heart, Maar was always a photographer, however, she lost interest in documenting the outside world. She no longer found exploring the city streets interesting and preferred to stay within the shadows of her darkroom. By the 1980s, Maar was virtually cameraless, having discovered the excitement of producing photograms. This involved laying household objects onto photo-sensitive paper, which when exposed to the light, left the covered sections white. Where the light directly hit the paper, it darkened.

Dora Maar continued working until her death on 16th July 1997 at the age of 89. She spent her final years living in an apartment in Rue de Savoie in Paris. Maar was never famous for her paintings during her lifetime and it has only been since her death that they have been studied in more detail. Whilst she is known better as a photographer, she is still predominantly regarded as the mistress of Picasso. Their relationship only lasted a decade but it has overshadowed her entire career. Hopefully, exhibitions such as this one at Tate Modern will allow her to be appreciated as an artist.

Dora Maar is on display at Tate Modern until 15th March 2020. Tickets cost £13 for adults and £5 for teens. Under 12s may visit for free, although some exhibits contain nudity.

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The Metamorphosis of Narcissus

Metamorphosis of Narcissus 1937 Salvador Dalí

Eighty years ago on 19th July 1938, two of the most significant and influential figures of the 20th century met for the first and only time. These were Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the father of psychoanalysis and Salvador Dalí (1904-89), a prominent Spanish surrealist painter. In order to mark the anniversary of this event, the Freud Museum in London held an exhibition to explore the connection between the two personalities, particularly Freud’s influence on Dalí and the Surrealist movement in general. The central focus of the exhibition was Dalí’s painting The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937), which he brought with him to discuss with his idol.

On 27th September 1938, Freud moved into “20 Maresfield Gardens … our last address on this planet” with his wife Martha (1861-1951), sister-in-law Minna Bernays (1865-1941), youngest daughter Anna (1895-1982) and his housekeeper Paula Fichtl (1902-89). Whilst the home was predominantly Anna’s, who lived there for the rest of her life, it has become the Freud Museum as per the wishes of his daughter. Although this is not the house where the meeting between Freud and Dalí took place, it is an appropriate location for the exhibition since it is the place the neurologist moved into shortly after.

Sigmund Freud by Max Halberstadt

Sigismund Schlomo Freud was born on 6th May 1856 to Galician Jewish parents in the town of Freiberg, which at the time was a part of the Austrian Empire (now the Czech Republic). He studied for a doctorate at the University of Vienna and went on to develop a set of theories and therapeutic techniques known as psychoanalysis. Unfortunately, the rise of Nazism in Germany was to put Freud’s life and his work at severe risk.

In Germany, the works of Freud and other psychoanalysts were publically burned along with any book that contained radical thinking or was written by a Jew. As a result, members of the psychoanalytical community, the majority of whom were Jewish, fled to other countries in an attempt to escape the wrath of Hitler. Freud, on the other hand, was determined to stay in his home country, however, when the country was annexed by Germany in 1938, the harassment he received from the Nazis prompted him to flee to London via Paris.

On arrival in London, Freud moved into rented accommodation in Hampstead Village, which is where he was living when Dalí visited him. Later, on 27th September, Freud and his family moved into the house in Maresfield Gardens, in which, with the help of his son Ernst (1892-1970), he recreated an identical working environment using the same furniture he had brought with him from Austria.

Sadly, the final 16 years of Freud’s life was affected by mouth cancer. Although he continued to work, write and see a number of patients, the pain eventually became too much for him. A year after moving in, on 23rd September 1939, Freud’s doctor at his patient’s insistence, increased the doses of morphine until, finally, Freud breathed his last.

Freud’s Office

Anna’s Desk

20 Maresfield Gardens

Dalí photographed by Carl Van Vechten

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquis of Dalí de Púbol, known professionally as Salvador Dalí, was born on 11th May 1904 in Catalonia, Spain. Dalí attended drawing school as a child and later discovered modern painting, for instance, Cubism. It was not until 1929 that Dalí began to experiment with surrealist art forms.

Dalí became a fan of Freud after he read the latter’s book The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) while an art student in Madrid in the early 1920s. The book, which introduced the idea of unconscious desire and self-interpretation, inspired Dalí to try to interpret “not only of my dreams but of everything that happened to me.” These new ideas began to have a strong impact on Dalí’s artwork and way of thinking.

Not only were Dalí’s paintings affected by the revelation, but he also began to write. In 1933, he wrote a “psycho-analytical essay” called The Tragic Myth of Millet’s ‘Angelus’ in which he explored his obsession with the painting The Angelus by Jean-François Millet (1814-75). This essay, along with The Metamorphosis of Narcissus, Dalí took to his eventual meeting with Freud.

Dalí was determined to meet and talk with his hero, however, three attempts to meet in Vienna were unsuccessful. Shortly after he finished painting The Metamorphosis of Narcissus in 1937, Dalí tried once more to arrange a meeting with Freud. Rather than contacting the psychoanalyst directly, Dalí wrote a letter to the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), a close friend of Freud’s, asking him for an introduction. Zweig acquiesced, although warned Dalí that Freud was in poor health.

Zweig persuaded Freud to meet Dalí by convincing him of the importance of this meeting. According to Zweig, Dalí was the only genius among contemporary painters, “the only one who will last … the most faithful, the most grateful of the disciples you have among the artists.” So, finally, a meeting took place on 19th July 1938 in which Dalí’s wife and Edward James (1907-84), the owner of the painting, were also present.

Narcissus by Caravaggio

Narcissus by Gyula Benczúr

Narcissus at the Spring by Jan Roos

Dalí’s painting of The Metamorphosis of Narcissus is based upon a story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses called Echo and Narcissus. Echo is a mountain nymph who falls in love with the beautiful Narcissus, a hunter from Greece. Narcissus, however, spurns her advances causing her to pine away until she is little more than an echo.

In order to teach Narcissus a lesson for the way he treated Echo, the goddess Aphrodite causes him to become obsessively enamoured by beautiful things. After luring Narcissus to a pool of water, Aphrodite leaves him peering at his reflection. Unaware that the image is of himself, Narcissus falls in love with the handsome youth he sees in the water. Unable to leave the alluring image, Narcissus stays there burning with desire until he too, like Echo, fades away. All that remained was a white flower.

Dalí’s oil painting shows Narcissus sitting in a pool looking down at his reflection. A striking landscape resembles the Cap de Creus, a headland located northeast of Catalonia where Dalí was born. The mountains in the far distance, however, also alludes to the Austrian Alps that Dalí saw in Zürs where he painted the canvas.

As well as painting The Metamorphosis of Narcissus, Dalí wrote a poem of the same name. The verse begins with the melting of the snow god, “his dazzling head bent over the dizzy space of reflections starts melting with desire.” This imagery could also be another reason Dalí included the melting snow caps in the distance. The phrase itself, of course, foretells the fate of Narcissus.

Two forms dominate the foreground of the painting. The easiest to see is the stone-like bony hand on the right-hand side of the canvas. On the top of the thin fingers balances a fragile egg or bulb from which an individual white narcissus flower blooms. This is another indication of the fate of Narcissus.

The form on the left, not as easy to make out the first time, is the crouching figure of the golden youth Narcissus. His head is bowed and hidden from the audience by the placement of his knee, however, it is clear from his stature that he is solely focused on what he can see in the reflection of the pool.

The more the two figures are compared, the more obvious it becomes that they share identical contours and structures despite depicting entirely different objects. The index finger on the hand is the same shape and dimension as Narcissus’ left arm. The thumb replaces Narcissus’ left leg on the opposite figure and the egg clearly represents his head.

The Metamorphosis of Narcissus is a show of Dalí’s dexterous skill in being able to employ the use of trompe l’oeil, which literally translates into English as “eye-fooling.” The hand, which appears almost three-dimensional as though it could be physically felt, is more predominant than the figure of Narcissus. The image of the Greek youth is set slightly further back than the hand, resulting in the eye noticing the egg and flower before seeing the main character of the story.

In a clever yet subtle way, Dalí has managed to make the myth of Narcissus play out before the viewers’ very eyes. Being slightly less strong in colour than the hand, the brain begins to dismiss the figure of Narcissus, focusing on the more precise object. Thus, Narcissus appears to fade away.

“If one looks for some time, from a slight distance and with a certain ‘distant fixedness’ at the hypnotically immobile figure of Narcissus, it gradually disappears until at last it is completely invisible. The metamorphosis of the myth takes place at that precise moment, for the image of Narcissus is suddenly transformed into the image of a hand which rises out of his own reflection …”
– Dalí, in the preface to his poem

Although the figure of Narcissus may appear to fade away, the more the painting is looked at, the more the eye sees. Relating back to the Greek myth, Dalí has included a group of naked bodies – both male and female – in the background who, like Echo, have also fallen in love with Narcissus. By parading their bodies around, they are attempting in vain to draw Narcissus’ attention away from his reflection in the pool.

The reason Dalí was eager to show this particular painting to Freud was that he had found inspiration from Freud’s own work. The Metamorphosis of Narcissus echoes Freud’s theory of narcissism, which he wrote about in his Introduction to Psychoanalysis. Freud defines narcissism as “the displacement of an individual’s libido towards that individual’s own body, towards the ‘ego’ of the subject.” This, in turn, sums up what has happened to Narcissus through his obsession with his own reflection.

The much-anticipated meeting with Freud was a bit of a let down for Dalí. Prepared to show himself as an example of “universal intellectualism”, Dalí was unnerved by Freud’s passive silence throughout the encounter. Rather than having a two-way conversation, Dalí attempted to talk to Freud whilst Freud, in turn, stared mutely at the artist. Dalí had hoped the psychoanalyst’s interest in narcissim would spark a discussion about his painting, yet nothing of the sort occurred. Similarly, Dalí brought with him a copy of the surrealist journal Minotaure, featuring the essay he had written about The Angelus for Freud to read, however, Freud, “continued to stare at me without paying the slightest attention to my magazine.”

From Dalí’s account of the meeting, Freud appears to be rather rude, causing Dalí to involuntarily raise his voice and become more insistent, practically begging Freud to read his work or even respond to his questions. Reportedly, the first thing Freud said during the encounter after staring at Dalí for some time, was directed at Stefan Zweig, who was also present: “I have never seen a more complete example of a Spaniard. What a fanatic!“

Eventually, Freud did engage Dalí in some form of communication, although whether Dalí was satisfied with this, it cannot be certain. Freud told Dalí: “It is not the unconscious I seek in your pictures but the conscious.” Comparing Dalí’s work to the famous masters, i.e. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-19), who Freud wasted no time announcing he preferred, Freud explained that usually an unconscious idea is hidden in a painting, however, Dalí’s work is a mechanism to discover unconscious ideas.

Despite Freud’s behaviour at the time, it appears from written correspondence to Zweig after the event that he was pleased to have made Dalí’s acquaintance and was particularly interested in some of the ideas the painter had attempted to discuss.

“I really have reason to thank you for the introduction … I was inclined to look upon surrealists – who have apparently chosen me for their patron saint – as absolute (let us say 95 per cent, like alcohol) cranks. The young Spaniard, however … has made me reconsider my opinion.”
– Freud in a letter to Zweig

Sigmund Freud by Dalí

Since nothing overly significant happened as a result of the meeting, there were very little directly related resources the Freud Museum could use for their exhibition – other than the painting of The Metamorphosis of Narcissus, of course, which was lent by the Tate Collection for the occasion. Dalí did, however, sketch a portrait of Freud during the meeting, which permanently hangs in the first-floor landing at 20 Maresfield Gardens.

In display cases around the exhibition room were items related to both Dalí, Freud, narcissism and the myth of Narcissus. This included books and essays written by both men, handwritten letters and a couple of intriguing objects. Unbeknownst to Dalí at the time of painting, Freud owned a small bronze figure of a hand holding an egg, not dissimilar to the hand in Dalí’s painting. Since it is a Roman figurine from the 1st or 2nd century AD, it is thought that Dalí may have discovered another version elsewhere from which he took inspiration.

The exhibition Freud, Dalí and the Metamorphosis has now finished, however, the Freud Museum continues to welcome visitors to see the house. Although Freud only lived in the house for a year, the open rooms pay homage to his life, his work and his legacies. Anna Freud is also remembered through some of the furniture, photographs and paraphernalia that belonged to her. The Metamorphosis of Narcissus will return to the Tate Collection where it may be viewable by the public.

The Freud Museum is open on Wednesday – Saturday from 12pm until 5pm. Admission fees are £9 per adult, £5 per 12-16 year old and free for under 12s. Other concessions apply. Tickets are valid for a year and everyone is encouraged to come back more than once.

Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up

For the first time ever, the possessions of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo have left Mexico and arrived at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum to help tell her powerful, yet tragic story, Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up. Beginning with an introduction to her family and ending with an impressive collection of clothing, Kahlo’s personal belongings, which were not discovered until 2004, reveal how she assembled her personal identity and coped with her many hardships.

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo in blue satin blouse

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón was born on 6th July 1907 and would grow up to become a painter of surrealism and folk art based on her strong opinions about identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Unfortunately, life was not going to be easy for Kahlo, particularly where her health was concerned.

Kahlo’s parents were the German photographer Guillermo Kahlo (1871–1941) and Matilde Calderón y González (1876–1932) of indigenous descent. Although she had three sisters and two step-sisters, it appears that Frida was the favourite. Whilst her siblings went to a convent school, her father insisted she was enrolled into a German school. The reason for her father’s favouritism was on account of her disabilities as a result of Polio, which she contracted when she was six years old. As a result, her right leg was much shorter and thinner than the left.

Unfortunately, children were no better than they are today and bullied Frida about her defects. Isolated from her peers, her father took it upon himself to teach her about literature, nature, and philosophy, which set her in good stead for her political future with the Communist party. Guillermo also taught his daughter about photography, thus introducing Frida into the world of art and composition.

Frida Kahlo’s childhood took place during a time when women were not given equal opportunities and were regarded as weaker and lesser than men. Therefore, Kahlo’s determination to go to school to train to be a doctor shows her strength of character. Unfortunately, this dream of hers was never to be fulfilled. On 17th September 1925, whilst on her way home from school, Kahlo suffered near-fatal injuries after the bus she was travelling on collided with a street car. Lucky to survive, unlike many of the other passengers, Kahlo suffered fractured ribs, leg and collarbone and an iron handrail impaled through her pelvis.

Plaster corset painted and decorated by Frida Kahlo

Kahlo suffered from pain and illness for the rest of her life as a result of the crash, however, it opened up an entirely new career path for her. During her recovery, Kahlo spent the majority of time in bed, her back held up by uncomfortable plaster corsets, some of which can be seen in the exhibition. Lying on her back with a specially crafted table over her legs, Kahlo stared at herself in a mirror positioned above her bed and began to paint her self-portrait.

Self-portraits make up the majority of Kahlo’s paintings, using them as a means of exploring her identity and existence. Although she never painted the terrible traffic collision, Kahlo expressed her feelings and pain through her artwork. Many of these are made up of several surreal elements, commenting on different aspects of her life.

The V&A does not display many of her paintings, however, except for a still life at the beginning of the exhibition, the few that are shown are self-portraits. These are spread throughout the gallery in order to expand upon the personal objects and periods of her life.

Self-portrait with red and gold dress

The Broken Column, 1944

Self Portrait with Monkeys by Frida Kahlo, 1943

The Bride Frightened at Seeing Life Opened 1943

Frida Kahlo can be recognised by her black hair and a striking monobrow, as well as the fine black hairs between her nose and lips – an element many female artists would choose to omit when painting their self-portrait. Although she utilised make-up and carefully styled her hair, Kahlo was not one to be oppressed by female stereotypes. Her strong facial hair was a part of her and she wore it with pride and never let it bother her, even when some young American boys heckled her in the street, asking where the circus was.

Selection of cosmetics owned by Frida Kahlo

A few of the cosmetics and medications Kahlo frequently used are in display cases along with her sewing box, hairbrush and jewellery. Visitors can also see remnants of paint tubes and brushes personally used by Kahlo shortly before her death in 1954.

These belongings open a window into Kahlo’s life, which the symbolism in her paintings does not quite achieve. Whilst her self-portraits are a visual description of her appearance and cultural identity, the personal items reveal the true woman behind the paintbrush.

Kahlo typically included Mexican components in her paintings as well as the occasional post-colonialism reference. The colours, style of clothing and atmosphere are the type she experienced growing up in Mexico, which she endeavoured to hold onto despite the rise in Americanisation. Kahlo often painted exotic plants native to the country in the backgrounds and foregrounds of her portraits and sometimes included likenesses of her pets, which were also endemic to Mexico, for instance, spider monkeys.

Whenever Kahlo was unwell, her paintings reflected the pain and frustration she was feeling. Kahlo represented herself as wounded and broken, or like a child, depending on how the circumstances affected her mentality. Toward the end of her life, expressing the pain she was in became a common theme for Kahlo.

In The Broken Column (1944), Kahlo paints herself in the nude, her stomach and torso split apart to reveal a broken column that could topple at any moment. Her arms and face are attacked by nails, which, although draw no blood, express the pain and distress she was under at the time. The metaphor of the broken column alludes to the state her spine was in by the 1940s. Her back had worsened to the point that she could no longer sit or stand for any length of time due to the pain and lack of strength in the bones. Despite undergoing several operations throughout her life, nothing had cured her spinal problems and she was soon due to undergo an operation to fuse a bone graft and a steel support to her spine in order to straighten it. Regrettably, this procedure was also unsuccessful.

Despite this, Frida remained mentally strong, as emphasised by her stoic facial expression in the painting and upright posture. The tears on her face represent how she is feeling inside, but the vacuous facial features do not give any of that away. Her eyes look straight ahead at the audience as though she is conveying her spiritual triumph through a glance, challenging herself and others to accept the situation as it is and learn to endure and live with it.

Self-portrait on the Border between Mexico and the United States of America 1932

The Two Fridas, 1938

Whilst Kahlo was recovering from the bus crash, other people her age were finishing school and attending university. Although she had missed out on her chance to attend herself, once she was released from bed rest in 1927, she regained contact with her friends and joined them in their involvement with student politics. This quickly led to joining the Mexican Communist Party where Kahlo was introduced to many notable people, including the most successful Mexican painter at the time, Diego Rivera (1886-1957). As well as her politics, Rivera was interested in her artwork stating, “it was obvious to me that this girl was an authentic artist.”

Despite the age gap, Rivera and Kahlo became a couple and were later married in 1929. Kahlo’s parents regarded the match as a “marriage between an elephant and a dove,” however, Kahlo’s father was pleased she had married a rich man who could support her expensive medical treatment. The pair moved to the state of Morelos where Rivera, as a mural painter, had been given a commission. Unfortunately, this meant Kahlo was exposed to the fighting of the Mexican civil war. It is believed this sparked her preference of traditional peasant clothing and Mexican style art, now that she was more aware of the importance of Mexican identity and history.

Rivera had to move around a lot depending on who commisioned him for a mural. In 1930, Kahlo went with him to San Francisco in the United States where she was introduced to a number of American painters. Whilst the trip was by no means horrible, Kahlo was unimpressed by American life, which she regarded as boring, and made her even more determined to express her own heritage in her artwork.

One of the paintings she produced at this time emphasises her longing for her home country. Self-portrait on the Border between Mexico and the United States of America (1932) shows the artist standing on an imaginary boundary stone between her country and the country in which she was currently residing. She paints herself in traditional clothing, holding a Mexican flag, indicating her loyalty to her country.

Facing towards Mexico, a handful of crops grow in the foreground, symbolising Mexico’s agricultural history, however, the background is the type of scene Kahlo saw whilst in America. Tall buildings obscure the sky and chimney stacks pollute the air with smoke. On the left, a pre-Columbian building lies partially ruined and being struck by lightning, suggesting that America has destroyed the indigenous origins of the country.

Kahlo’s marriage was not much of a happy one. A number of times, Kahlo fell pregnant but feeling unable to carry and care for a baby, had the pregnancies terminated. Later, she decided she would like to try to carry a baby to full term, however, in her weakened state, her body was unable to cope and resulted in miscarriages. Whilst the loss of an unborn baby can be hard upon a couple, it was Rivera’s womanising ways that caused the most strain. After he had an affair with Kahlo’s younger sister, she moved out and began affairs of her own, with both men and with women. This included Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) who was living in Kahlo’s house after seeking asylum in Mexico. Eventually, Kahlo and Rivera were granted a divorce in 1939, however, they remained on friendly terms.

The Two Fridas (1939) was painted shortly after the couple’s divorce. In this self-portrait, Kahlo has painted herself twice; on the right is Frida wearing traditional costume and on the left, she wears modern clothing. Both Frida’s are holding hands and their hearts, which are visible on top of their chests, are joined together by a single artery.

Kahlo admitted that the painting represents her broken heart and loneliness after her separation from her husband. Torn between her traditional Mexican values and the modern developments occurring throughout the country, she felt lost and unable to determine her own identity. Without Rivera, Kahlo had lost a little bit of herself.

‘Frida Kahlo’, c1940s

Sadly, for Kahlo, divorce was soon to be the least of her worries. As previously mentioned, Kahlo’s spine was rapidly deteriorating during the 1940s, however, to make matters worse, in 1953 her right leg, already disfigured from Polio, developed gangrene and had to be amputated below the knee. She had a prosthetic leg made so that she could still move about, albeit slowly and in pain. The V&A displays her prosthetic wearing one of her bright red leather boots. Co-curator Circe Henestrosa declared, “this is my favourite object in the exhibition. It is really modern, and it symbolises her whole attitude. Far from letting herself be defined as an invalid, she intervened as a rebel act. She was comfortable uncovering her disabilities.”

On the night of 12th July 1954, Kahlo was in bed suffering from severe pain and a high fever. Having anticipated her death days before, Kahlo had produced a sketch of the Angel of Death annotated with the words, “I joyfully await the exit — and I hope never to return — Frida.” When Kahlo’s nurse came to check on her at 6am the next morning, she was dead.

According to Wikipedia, the Tate Modern has listed Kahlo as “one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century”, and art historian Elizabeth Bakewell concurs that Kahlo was “one of Mexico’s most important twentieth-century figures”. Kahlo’s fame has increased posthumously both as an artist and an unconventional personality. She is admired by feminists and people of the LGBT community on account of her bisexuality.

The Tempestuous Relationship Between Frida Kahlo And Diego Rivera

The V&A exhibition culminates with an extraordinary selection of Kahlo’s clothing, which was discovered in 2004 locked away in her personal bathroom of her house-cum-museum. All the outfits are full of bright colours and displayed on shop dummies created to look like Frida Kahlo, complete with her traditional braided hairstyle.

The style of dress is called Tehuana and comprises of several pieces. The blouses, or Huipile, were typical in Mexico and Central American countries and were usually made by hand. The embroidery is intricately beautiful and must have taken days or even weeks to produce; no doubt these items are one of a kind.

The skirts are floor length and equally delicately decorated. The material would have been perfect for Kahlo to cover up her disfigured leg and, later, the prosthetic leg. The skirt and Huipile were combined with various shawls or rezbos, which were wrapped around the shoulders. Although this was the traditional garb of Mexican peasants, the colours were fit for the elite.

“I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.”
-Frida Kahlo

The V&A has done a wonderful job, as always, with Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up. Rather than concentrating on her artwork, the museum looks at her entire life from birth to death. With only a limited selection of paintings available, visitors learn more about Kahlo as a person rather than a painter. They discover her passionate determination, her background, the future she paved for herself and, most importantly, the way she wished to be seen by the world.

Most people who visit the exhibition will likely have already heard of and know a little about Frida Kahlo. This is a great benefit because the museum does not elaborate much on certain events of her life. Another downside, as overheard whilst walking around the exhibition, is some of the information about certain paintings or photographs is far too low and small to read for many people, resulting in crowds bending over to get a closer look. Whilst there are booklets with large print available, there are not enough for everyone, especially as the tickets are usually sold out by mid-morning.

The V&A will be showing Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up until Sunday 4th November 2018. Tickets cost £15 and can be booked online, which is strongly advisable to limit disappointment. 

Picasso, 1932

LOVE, FAME, TRAGEDY

The year is 1932, a leap year. The United States and the United Kingdom are suffering from the Great Depression. Europe is in the grip of economic depression and mass unemployment. National Socialism is on the rise in Germany and political developments in France are adding to the growing tension. Picasso is 50 years old and preparing for his first major retrospective to be held in June at the Galeries Georges Petit in Paris. This year could either make him or break him.

Dubbed his “year of wonders”, the Tate Modern has chosen to examine the life and works of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) during 1932. Married to the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova, although having an affair for the much younger, 22-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter, Picasso was living the life of a well-to-do bourgeoisie in France, wearing tailored suits and owning a personal chauffeur-driven car. However, political and economic problems throughout the world remained persistently in the background, a constant premonition of tragedies to befall both the artist and the rest of the world.

“The work that one does is a way of keeping a diary.”
Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, 1932

Now considered the Father of Modern Art, Picasso came from more humble origins. Born Pablo Ruiz Picasso on 25th October 1881 in Malaga, Spain, he developed his love of art from his father who taught at the Escuela Provincial de Bellas Artes. A young prodigy, Picasso purchased his own studio in Barcelona at the age of 16, however, he spent the majority of his time there in poverty.

Picasso’s move to Paris at the turn of the century was a blessing for both his artwork and his financial situation. His collaboration with the French painter Georges Braque (1882-1963) led to their invention of Cubism, a revolutionary new artistic approach. At the same time, Picasso met Olga Khokhlova (1891-1955) who he married in 1918, and celebrated the birth of their son, Paulo (1921-75), three years later.

As Picasso’s wealth and reputation excelled, his family life suffered. By 1932, his marriage was under considerable strain, not helped by his clandestine affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter (1909-77). Despite the situation with his personal relationships, Picasso was determined to compete creatively with his contemporaries, working hard to facilitate his own retrospective.

“I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.”
Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso: Woman with Dagger

The EY Exhibition: Picasso 1932 opens with one of Picasso’s final paintings of 1931. Woman with Dagger is an example of the style Picasso was known for at this period of time. The Surrealist technique reduces the image to a series of lines and colours, morphing into strange shapes. This painting shows a woman stabbing her sexual rival to death, however, the bodies are so distorted, it is difficult to make out who is who.

Being the first painting of the exhibition, Woman with Dagger gives an inaccurate precedent of the works to come. As visitors will note as they walk through the following rooms, Picasso focused heavily on portraits, particularly of women, often seated in an armchair. Judging from the date and frequency of these paintings, the sitter is likely to be Picasso’s lover, Marie-Thérèse, however, the artist admitted himself that he rarely painted from life, preferring to use his imagination or memories of dreams.

 

Reading, Picasso, 1932

The Dream (Le Rêve), 1932

Woman in a Red Armchair, 1932

Supposedly, the armchair in Picasso’s paintings symbolises death. Whilst the sitter is young, painted with bright, vibrant colours, the muted, darker background and chair represent the constraints of life. Often, the model and chair amalgamate, suggesting that the woman is tied to the chair, tied to fate, tied to inevitable death.

A typical feature in Picasso’s portraits is the dual profile of the face showing half from the side and half face on. Although many art critics have their own theories, commentators at the Tate have suggested this evokes a form of sexual tension. The face is half woman, the way she sees herself, and half male, or the way a lover or sexual predator may view her. Glancing at a Picasso, it is easy to miss these sexual references, however, those who opt for an audio guide at the beginning of the exhibition, soon get all the details pointed out to them.

Despite always working in a surrealist-like manner by distorting the female body, Picasso occasionally experimented with the way he treated the painting. In Woman in a Red Armchair, Picasso converts his flat, colourful shapes into three-dimensional abstract forms, comparable to a sculpture. As well as painting, Picasso turned his hand to sculpting, however, if this painting were to be produced in clay, cement or such like, it would immediately fall apart.

Prior to 1932, Picasso experimented with unorthodox methods of sculpting whilst at his 18th-century château in Normandy. During this time he produced a number of busts of a woman – again, likely to be Marie-Thérèse – in a similar fashion to his painted versions. The bulging, distended shape of the face has been replicated in cement, creating a dual profile that changes its overall appearance depending on what angle it is viewed from. Seen from the side, the bust looks like a typical face (despite the oversized nose), however, from the front, the facial features are terribly out of proportion. A series of photographs of a selection of Picasso’s sculptures are on display taken by the French-Hungarian photographer Brassaï (1899-1984).

 

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust

Girl Before A Mirror, 1903

Throughout the first half of 1932, Picasso continued to focus on his portraits of women, often depicting them in the nude. The surreal, abstract quality of his work prevents the paintings from becoming overly provocative, just as the original reclining nudes of the Renaissance-era were not unduly sexualised. By taking a traditional subject and reproducing it in a contemporary style, Picasso was endeavouring to prove that figurative painting could be modern.

Midway through the exhibition, a room is devoted to Picasso’s retrospective held at the Galerie Georges Petit. Apart from a few exceptions, it was rare for living artists to have retrospectives. They tended to be a summary of the life of the artist, therefore, Picasso included a range of his works from different times of his life. In order to obscure his artistic development, Picasso did not hang works in a chronological order, interspersing recent paintings with those produced many years before. Nonetheless, critics could group some together due to the regular appearance of Marie-Thérèse Walter and portraits of his young son were easily dated to when he was a child.

 

Olga in an Armchair, 1917

Paulo, Picasso’s Son, as Pierrot

The paintings of Picasso’s family: Olga, Paulo and himself, may surprise many viewers on account of their “normality”. Before Picasso developed Cubism and dabbled with Surrealism, he produced many realistic paintings. Although the portraits do not look finished, they show the broad talent of Picasso in terms of painting. Being able to produce realistic likenesses but choosing not to says a lot about what Picasso wanted to achieve through his artwork. He wanted his work to be looked at and thought about, concealing subliminal messages within the twists and turns of the abstract body parts.

“I feel like I am witnessing a retrospective vision of myself ten years after my death.”
Pable Picasso

Despite the lengths Picasso went to facilitate his own retrospective, declining offers of help from prestigious organisations such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Picasso refused to attend the actual show – allegedly, he went to the cinema instead! Nevertheless, he achieved what he set out to do and was satisfied, unlike the gallery, which due to economic and political turmoil, closed its doors for good the following year.

 

Nude Woman in a Red Armchair

Sleeping Woman

Once Picasso’s exhibition was out of the way, the artist felt less pressure to produce masterpieces. His canvases got smaller and the treatment of his paintbrushes more fluid and less careful. One example is Nude Woman in a Red Armchair painted in July 1932, where the model – Marie-Thérèse Walter – is a soft, rotund figure, without the harsh outlines of older paintings. The blues and purples give the woman a dream-like quality, suggesting Picasso had strong feelings of love towards her, which stands in stark contrast to the dark background tones.

Throughout 1932, Picasso also produced a number of charcoal drawings. Although they look like unfinished studies, they are intended to be finished works in their own right. The subject matter, for instance, a sleeping woman, is typical of Picasso, however, he concentrated on line-drawing rather than colour.

These charcoal drawings on canvas, despite being finished pieces, are not dissimilar to what can be found in Picasso’s sketchbooks. Picasso rarely created preparatory studies, however, he liked to practice his drawing skills by making a rapid succession of sketches. These give some indication of the starting points of a painting, how the shapes were built up to resemble people and other elements. For actual artworks, Picasso would draw onto the canvas before filling in the resulting shapes with colour.

 

Crucifixion Study

The Crucifixion

Isenheim Altarpiece, Nikolaus Hagenauer and Matthias Grünewald, c 1512–1516

With the summer over, Picasso’s subject matter changed drastically. Motivated by classical themes, religious and secular, he began to paint different scenes, particularly focusing on the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Picasso produced a large number of black and white studies, experimenting with shapes, both two- and three-dimensional, and line work to create a representation of Christ on the Cross. He was particularly inspired by the Isenheim Altarpiece produced in c1521 by Matthias Grünewald. This influence is evident in Picasso’s versions, the figures being situated in the same places, despite the abstract nature of the studies.

Composition with Butterfly

During these experimental months, Picasso also experimented with forms of collages. These involved the use of found objects, both natural and manmade, which were layered together to create a picture. Composition with Butterfly contains a dried leaf, the remains of a real butterfly, and string, manipulated to produce the shape of a human being.

The Rescue

 

As 1932 drew to a close, Picasso’s subject matter got significantly darker. The theme of being rescued from death-by-drowning became Picasso’s focus. The Rescue, the final painting of the year, shows a woman being saved either by another woman or by a bird. The meaning is not entirely clear, which leaves viewers guessing and coming up with their own theories.

The colours are not as bright as works from the beginning of the year and the paint is applied in a rushed, distressed manner, which may suggest more about the artist’s frame of mind rather than the intention of the painting. From September onwards, Picasso rapidly changed styles and subject matter, giving the impression he was restless and possibly suffering from some kind of anguish.

As the strapline for the exhibition states, Picasso’s year consisted of three major themes: love, fame and tragedy. The first half of the year, Picasso was enjoying his clandestine affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter, which led on to his retrospective exhibition. Achieving fame and recognition, Picasso was at the height of his career, successful and wealthy. Unfortunately, the final quarter of 1932 found Picasso in a different state of mind, although it is impossible without knowing the man to pinpoint the exact reason for this. It did, however, present a forbidding premonition of events to come.

By 1932, Picasso’s marriage to Olga was already under strain, however, the illegitimate birth of his daughter Maya with Marie-Thérèse ended things for good. Olga moved to the south of France, taking son Paulo with her; an event that Picasso described as the worst period of his life.

At the same time, the world was not fairing any better. In January 1933, Hitler became German Chancellor, Italy was under fascist dictatorship and Picasso’s home country Spain was submerged in a civil war. Six years later, the entire world was at war and Picasso’s successful year, his “year of wonders”, was a distant memory.

Picasso 1932 is an exhibition suitable for all. Although the subject matter of many paintings may not seem appropriate for youngsters, the abstract forms hide the sexual meanings from innocent minds. The exhibition is popular with school parties who come to look at the shapes and colours of Picasso’s works, whereas adult visitors can study the paintings in more detail with the aid of an optional audioguide (£4.50) and a pocket-sized booklet.

The EY Exhibition: Picasso 1932 organised by Tate Modern in collaboration with Musée national Picasso-Paris costs £22 entry per person or free for those in possession of a membership card. Under 18s can visit for £5 and younger children under the age of 12 may enter for free. This exhibition will remain open to the public until 9th September 2018. 

Dalí/Duchamp: What is Art?

Robert Descharnes, Duchamp and Dalí playing chess during filming for A Soft Self-Portrait, directed by Jean-Christophe Averty (detail), 1966.

The first major exhibition of its kind, the Royal Academy is exploring the artistic and personal relationship between two of the world’s greatest 20th-century artists. Although their artwork may appear to be total opposites – one rejecting painting whilst the other excels at it – Salvador Dalí and Marcel Duchamp bonded over their mutual interests, humour and scepticism, which provided the basis for a lifelong friendship. Most importantly, however, were their unconventional views of art; and this is the reason why the RA is honouring the two artists with a joint display of their work.

Although a lot smaller than other exhibitions the RA has curated, the Dalí/Duchamp attraction is structured thematically into four components: Identities; The Body and the Object; Experimenting with Reality; and Playing Games. Despite their obvious contrariety in terms of artistic style, the RA aims to show Dalí and Duchamp in a new perspective and provoke the question: what is art?

Madonna, Salvador Dalí, 1958

Lobster Telephone, 1936, Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí (1904-89) was a Spanish painter, designer and filmmaker who was initially influenced by various art styles such as Cubism, Futurism and Metaphysical Painting. By 1929, however, Dalí had joined the newly created Surrealism group.

Dalí liked to be in the limelight and his resulting celebrity status rapidly earned him the recognition as the face of Surrealism. Surrealism, however, was a revolution led by the French poet André Breton (1896-1966) who wanted to challenge the conventions of society. Largely influenced by the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the group of writers, poets and (later) artists were interested in expressing the subconscious mind rather than the reality of everyday life.

Adopting many Surrealist ideas in his artwork, Dalí developed them further in an attempt to make them more positive. One method he titled “Critical Paranoia” which involved the combination of imagery based on his dreams and fantasies with the natural appearance of the world. It is this notion that most of Dalí’s iconic paintings stemmed, full of optical illusions that appear dream-like or hallucinatory – what Dalí termed “hand-painted dream photographs”.

Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q, 1919.

Marcel Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915–23 (reconstruction by Richard Hamilton 1965–6, lower panel remade 1985).

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) was a French-born artist and art theorist who spent the majority of his life in the United States. In contrast to Dalí, Duchamp was a more private character, sometimes disappearing from the art scene for lengthy periods at a time. As a result, his artistic output was small in comparison to other creators of the era.

In 1915, along with Man Ray (1890-1976), who also features in this exhibition, Duchamp formed the movement known as Dada. This movement was established shortly after the First World War and was initially politically oriented.

“The beginnings of Dada were not the beginnings of art, but of disgust.” – Tristan Tzara, poet, 1896-1963

Dadaists were often referred to as creators of “anti-art”, combining collage, poetry and other visual methods full of satirical nonsense. This was their attack on the beliefs and values imposed upon society, which they emphasised through their use of non-traditional materials.

Duchamp’s main contribution to Dadaism was his collection of “readymades” – objects consisting of mass-produced articles isolated from their intentional function and displayed as a work of art.

Later, although he never created any art for the movement, Duchamp became an advocate for Surrealism. Members welcomed him into the fold in appreciation of his controversial readymades, which resonated with their ideologies. It is from this connection that Duchamp and Dalí met and formed a long-lasting friendship.

“Is it possible to make works, which are not works of art?” – Duchamp, 1913

The first two sections of the exhibition (Identities and The Body and the Object) contain some of the lesser known works of the two artists. It took a while for Dalí to establish his iconic style of dreamlike, surreal scenes, beginning his career by copying old master paintings. He proved himself to be a talented draughtsman but felt that by appropriating styles from other artists, he was not producing original art. Dalí went through an experimental period before settling on the technique for which he became famous.

Duchamp, on the other hand, experimented with identity in a more literal sense. Although Marcel Duchamp (born Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp) is the name he is remembered by, he operated under a selection of pseudonyms. The most significant of these is the alter ego he began assuming in the 1920s, Rrose Sélavy [misspelling intentional]. Going as far as cross-dressing, Duchamp switched between his two identities throughout his career, frequently altering his persona to fit with a particular piece of work. “I wanted to change identity … suddenly I had an idea: why not change sex? It’s much simpler!” (Duchamp, 1967)

Although it was Duchamp who become famous for his readymades, both went through periods of creating assemblages rather than paintings. Many of these are displayed in glass cases at the Royal Academy, including Dalí’s Lobster Telephone (1936). Some, if not all, of these examples are contentious, provoking the viewer to question what art is. But, more significantly, these objects create a sense of unease within the gallery.

Both Dalí and Duchamp openly expressed erotic themes in their creations. Whilst these may not be explicit, created by combining everyday objects, they are suggestive enough to make the audience feel uncomfortable. And for those who do not discern the references, the RA has provided captions and information to enlighten you.

Fountain, 1917 (replica 1964) Duchamp

Amongst the collection of readymades is Duchamp’s most controversial work – perhaps the most controversial artwork of the 20th-century. Apart from the addition of a signature, what people initially see is a basic porcelain urinal positioned horizontally (on its side), however, this is actually the influential Fountain (1917) that sparked the debate about what can be considered art.

In order to remain anonymous (at least at the time), Duchamp signed the urinal with a pseudonym, R. Mutt and submitted it to an exhibition at the Society of Independent Artists in New York. Despite paying the $6 entry fee, the organisers remained unimpressed and were convinced Duchamp was (to pardon the term) “taking the piss”.

In his defence, Duchamp wrote an unsigned letter to The Blind Man magazine titled “The Richard Mutt Case” in which he argued, “Whether or not Mr Mutt made it with his own hands has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an everyday article, placed it so that its usual significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – and created a new thought for that object.”

The Royal Academy provides a copy of the article but says no more on the subject, leaving it up to visitors to form their own opinion. It is possible to argue both sides of the is-it-art-dilemma and, being a subjective topic, there is no right answer.

Les premiers jours du printemps (The First Days of Spring), 1929, Dalí

Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach, 1938

It is Salvador Dalí who steals the show in the final sections of the exhibition. Perhaps because it is easier to understand and appreciate a painting as art, opposed to a readymade, you are immediately drawn to the large-scale canvases adorning the brightly lit walls of the Weston Galleries. The range of artworks span Dalí’s career and include his first undertaking of the Surrealist style. Les premier jours du printemps or The First Days of Spring (1929) was painted within the first few years of the movement’s inception, however, says more about Dalí’s persona than it does the doctrines set out by André Breton.

The empty landscape is an allusion to the beach-like area in which Dalí grew up in Catalonia, Spain, which he has filled with motifs that would eventually become a key feature of his iconography in future paintings. Amongst these mythical creations are a fish emerging from a tree and a grasshopper attached to a human head.

Centred in the middle of the painting is a photograph of Dalí as a young boy, implying that the painting is about him and not, as the title suggests, the literal beginning of spring. It has been suggested that the figures of man and boy represent the growing distance between Dalí and his father who was displeased with his son’s choice of profession. On the horizon, a man and child can be seen holding hands, but further forward on the left, a man sits with his back to the scene behind him.

Other paintings produced later in Dalí career are more recognisable than his first surrealist endeavour. Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938) conforms to the optical illusion style that Dalí is renowned for, in which the entire composition is made up of components that produce more than one scene. This cleverly constructed painting appears to be both a dish of pears and a phantasmal face floating above a beach (possibly another reference to Dalí’s home country). However, this is not the only illusion; what could be rocks or mountains becomes a dog’s head with a bridge and beach making its collar and nose. There are also a handful of motifs typical in a Dalí painting.

Christ of Saint John of the Cross by Salvador Dalí, 1951.

One large painting that catches the eyes of visitors as they enter the room is Christ of Saint John of the Cross completed by Dalí in 1951. Still appertaining to the style of Surrealism (despite Dalí having left the group in the 1940s), this artwork is remarkably different from his other works. Although it is not the only Dalí painting to contain religious iconography, it is not a theme usually associated with the artist.

Dalí has based the painting on a drawing by the 16th-century Spanish friar John of the Cross. It depicts the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in a darkened sky, looking over a body of water in which fishermen are working – a reference to his disciples, perhaps.

Many artists have painted the crucifixion but Dalí’s version is quite different. Ignoring the placement of the cross and scenery, which is, of course, unusual, the painting lacks any nails, blood or crown of thorns. Dalí claimed to have a dream in which the importance of the lack of these features was revealed to him, as well as the exaggerated angle of the cross.

“In the first place, in 1950, I had a ‘cosmic dream’ in which I saw this image in colour and which in my dream represented the ‘nucleus of the atom.’ This nucleus later took on a metaphysical sense; I considered it ‘the very unity of the universe,’ the Christ!” – Dalí

Apart from its striking tones and realistic imagery, Christ of Saint John of the Cross attracts attention because it is one of the least expected images to see in an exhibition about Dalí and Duchamp. The movements they are associated with – Dada and Surrealism – both rejected systems of belief including religion, therefore to see an image of Christ on such a grand scale is very surprising. This may reflect back to his childhood, being brought up by his devout Catholic mother, and slowly becoming estranged from his atheist father, but this is only speculation.

Visitors may have preconceived ideas about what they will see at the Royal Academy’s Dalí/Duchamp exhibition. They are the type of artist people either like or do not, and there is the added issue of whether their work can be understood. Those expecting to see disturbing, disquieting or surprising “artworks” will be correct in their prediction, however, there is more to see than expected.

By presenting the artworks by theme, the Royal Academy takes the visitors through the different stages of thought the two artists went through during their careers. The beginning conforms to the preconceived ideas of the artists – satire, eroticism, readymades – but by the time visitors leave, after studying Dalí’s paintings, learning more about Duchamp’s Fountain and watching a couple of videos, chances are opinions would have changed. Perhaps on leaving, Dalí and Duchamp will go up in people’s judgement and appreciation, and possibly – although, maybe not – be better understood.

The Royal Academy of Arts will be continuing to display the Dalí/Duchamp exhibition until 3rd January 2018. The exhibition has been organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and The Dalí Museum, St Petersburg, Florida, in collaboration with the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation and the Association Marcel Duchamp. Tickets are £16.50, although Friends of the RA can go free. Please note, this exhibition contains some adult content.