Black and white works by Picasso at an exhibition in New York

An exhibition dedicated to the black and white works of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) will run from October 5 to January 23, 2013 at the Museo Guggenheim Museum in New York. The exposition will consist of 118 sculptures, paintings and drawings. The exhibition “Picasso: Black and White” (Picasso Black and White) includes works created between 1904 and 1971, due to the artist’s interest in monochrome tones throughout his career.

Pablo Picasso - The Milliners Workshop

One of the curators of the exhibition, Carmen Giménez, said at a press conference today that these works were created by the artist using the techniques of cubism and surrealism, and gravitate to rock paintings from the Paleolithic era. Also, the master’s series of black and white works can be associated with the Spanish tradition of abundantly using black color in paintings immortalized by artists such as El Greco, Diego Velazquez, Francisco de Zurbaran, Jose de Ribera, and especially Francisco de Goya with his “blacks” pictures.

“Picasso very effectively uses black, white and gray tones in sculptural compositions in order to emphasize the formal structure and his own style,” adds Jimenez. Picasso used these colors, black, white and soft shades of gray to recreate the theme of the horrors of war, and in allegorical still lifes, and in interpreting the masterpieces of art history, which, according to the artist, have “amazing intensity with minimal tones”.

Anna Sidorova