Stroud Is All Over the Place: Picasso and Paper

My mother said to me, “If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.” Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.

On my recent trip to London, I visited the Royal Academy of Arts, on the famous Piccadilly Street, right across the street from the equally famous purveyor of fine foods to the Royal Family, Fortum & Mason.

This trip, the Royal Academy offered an exhibit of Picasso and Paper. I knew a little about the celebrity artist, Pablo Picasso. Visited the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid to view Picasso’s most famous and probably his most massive painting, Guernica. Most major museums have had Picasso exhibits and I’ve seen many of them, but it was not until I visited this Royal Academy exhibit that I was able to come to grips with Picasso the man and Picasso the artist. My simple conclusion is that the two are inseparable.

It’s impossible for me to do justice to the complete multi media panorama of Picasso’s life offered by the Academy, but I will do my best to show you what I learned about how the man was never separated from his art. Every person he met left an impression on him, every angle, every color, every substance became an amalgam of his mind and his art.

Guitar, 1912, cut-out cardboard, pasted paper, canvas, string, oil and pencil.

So many times I’ve heard, modern art is shit, or something worse. I see and understand your point of view, but I advise you to look past the art to the process and the intriguing mind of a man who saw art in everything, whose whole life revolved around a connection to his art. He is reported as having said, “I learned to draw before I learned to speak.” The Academy exhibit showed clearly that at a very early age, he created art that even now is impressive. So, when I write that Picasso’s life revolved around art, I mean his whole life, from childhood to his passing, using every conceivable manner of artistic expression: canvas, paper of every sort, paints, crayons, dyes, pens, pencils, brushes, clay for both sculpture and ceramics and on and on.

At the age of 9 or 10, the artist hand cut these straight from paper without drawing a line!

Face of a Woman, 1962

He worked tirelessly, throughout his life and like most true artists, he worked without fear and without stagnation of any sort. His style changed often. The creations that we know, such as Guernica, were the product of sketch after sketch after sketch, on paper, on canvas, with pen, with oil, with anything else that was handy, as he probed and refined unceasingly toward his masterpiece.

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things. –Pablo Picasso

Self portrait, 1907

More cut-outs from Picasso's childhood, in the foreground, mounted on clear glass.

The casual person often persists in the misapprehension that all it takes is talent, and you either have it or you don’t. In my view, talent is merely a blank sheet of paper and what you do with it is what counts. We all have several blank sheets.

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order to learn how to do it. ---Pablo Picasso

In Picasso’s case, working every minute of everyday, closely associating with other artists, wooing women, much of which has nothing to do with art….or does it? He embraced life and all it has to offer, to the fullest, and all of it he applied to his art.

Notebook after notebook.

Seated Woman, 1938

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.

---Pablo Picasso

One of the points of his artistic compass was to distill and simplify his art, even as it became more and more complicated.

He drew constantly and kept multiple notebooks.

The Smoker, 1962

In the studio.

It took me four years to learn to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child. ---Pablo Picasso.

Most impressive was a video showing Picasso at work. In a unique way, with the camera on one side of thin paper and the artist on the other side, we get to see the drawing appear magically. I was also impressed with how this world famous artist took directions so guilelessly, almost meekly. His one concern was his freehand art, content to let others handle the details. Note also the intensity of his eyes and his concentration. I had never seen anything like this. It was so much more than simply a video of an artist at work, the likes of which you can find countlessly on youtube. This was the soul of the artist captured on film. But, this is not to say Picasso had no ego. Quite the reverse, as with many celebrities. How can you not when everyone near and far proclaims your genius. His ego showed itself one evening at a dinner with friends, when instead of paying, he simply signed the check. One in his party asked if he was going to pay. His response was words to the effect of, “My signature is worth far more than any dinner bill.”

I do apologize if the videos do not work. I have given them my best shot.

The exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts was all encompassing and brilliantly presented. A Picasso fan or not, one could not help but be impressed by the presentations of Picasso’s art and the clear and numerous explanations. This was an enormous assemblage of both art and a beautifully presented story of Pablo Picasso, the man, the artist.

For better understanding, I offer a very short sketch of Picasso’s life. He was christened Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, expressing the names of saints and family. He was born in Málaga, Spain, but the surname, Picasso, comes from near Genoa, Italy. Picasso’s father was a painter and his first drawing tutor.

The family moved around a lot, as did Pablo as an adult. Born in Málaga in 1880, he lived most of his adult life in France and died there in 1973.

He spoke both Spanish and French, having moved to France in 1904. He may also have spoken Catalan, since his parents moved to Barcelona when he was four.

Along the way to becoming famous, Picasso studied at a variety of art schools, yet moved in his own directions, the true sign of an artist.

Of course there are more photos! And a video!