Picasso not the patriot he painted

Spanish to the day he died was how Pablo Picasso wanted people to remember him. Not Franco, not two world wars, not even 70 years living in France could sap him of his Catalan spirit.

But police documents newly unearthed in Paris suggest that Picasso was not quite the raging patriot he seemed. In 1940, months before the Germans entered Paris, he applied for French citizenship and was denied it, a fact previously unknown to his biographers.

www.smh.com.au...

Well, dragon-R, however limited or reliable the evidence concerning Picasso's patriotism may be, there is ample evidence of Picasso's interest in Picasso.
It may be that he feared that the strong links between Nationalist Spain and Hitler's Reich - not to mention the very clear possibility at that time that Franco might have joined the Axis - could have placed him, as a Spaniard, in grave danger of extradition and the garrotte.

I think a Catalan finds it hard to be a Spanish patriot anyway.Let alone a communist Catalan in Fascist Spain.

France took much of his work in lieu of death duty and unpaid taxes but the bulk of the work he bequeathed personally,is now displayed in a gallery in Barcelona.

The Gallery,a former palace in the old quarter of Barcelona,is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Barcelona and well worth the visit if you are there.

DR : CATALUNYA is a european "dialect" with both catalans spoker both sides of the French and spanish frontier (Like the basque-country). Catalunya country goes from Perpignan, France to Barcelona (Spain). Barcelona is consider a the Catalunya capital even if Madrid is the capital of spain.

But anyway, PICASSO, even if he was a great artist and a great painter, was not a great man. I've read the testimony of his ex-wife, and she say he was a horrible man : He make his son mad and even caused the suicide of his little-son... Even if he was a billionaire, he just gived a short alimentary pension to his ex-wife.

Not a big fan of cubism... Baroque or Impressionism, now that's for me...

By most accounts though...he wasn't a man you'd want to know...

Originally posted by Gazrok
Not a big fan of cubism... Baroque or Impressionism, now that's for me...
By most accounts though...he wasn't a man you'd want to know...

Gazrock : Picasso is not cubist, nor baroque or impressionist.


It's a surrealist like Salvador DALI with a little bit of fauvism...


[Edited on 1-6-2003 by Nans DESMICHELS]

Picasso may be most famous for his cubism and abstraction but in his career he embraced many styles including neo-classicism and impressionism.Below is an early painting by Picasso.



I've never seen a surealist painting by Picasso though.I'd like to see an example of one.

www.museupicasso.bcn.es...

Picaso very great, very wonderful, very selfish, very greedy... for Estragon, THE 20th Century painter (and no slouch as a sculptor): to use "-ism's " when discussing artists of genius is, ultimately vacuous and possibly foolish.
Inded, Picasso and Braques were Cubism; but that is just a strand in the great man's work.
It's a nice picture that J-B has posted but Picasso was a child prodigy of sorts in the more familiar representational schools of drawing and painting.
Quite good for him as the ability to do the "traditional" well is most helpful when one does the "un-traditional".
Incidentally, if one reads around the lives of the two the feud betwen Dali (Royalist, Nationalist, Franco-ist, Catholic) and Picasso is quite amusing.