Picasso/Dali. Dali/Picasso.
Picasso Museum, Barcelona, March 20th to June 28th
Picasso and Dalí are two of the very biggest figures in 20th-century art—and beyond it, as their impact stretches to logos, clothes and even cars. Both were big brazen characters with an unorthodox stance on life and lust. Both were exceptional draftsmen, and good writers, so why do they still divide the crowd? The Picasso Museum’s latest exhibition gives no clear-cut answers. Instead the curators place equal weight on these Spanish giants; it is less about one trumping the other, more about their relationship and the cultural currents that fizzed through them. The slash in the title ought to be an ampersand.
The two men first met in 1926 when Dalí visited Picasso’s studio in Paris. It was the beginning of a complicated friendship, seasoned with rivalry and some fierce political views. Undeterred by the fact that Picasso was the elder of the two by 22 years, the show is organised chronologically, which helps chart their progress both as artists and as public figures. For the most part, the work is hung in neat pairs encouraging direct comparison. Picasso’s “Portrait of Olga”, 1917 (below), is coupled with Dalí’s “Portrait of my Sister”, 1923 (above). Both are strong female figures with a fixed, outward gaze, and they share the same hollow eyes, deprived of emotion. The colour palette is almost identical—dirty greys and muted, melancholy browns. Even the hands are similar: clunky, with proportions that are not quite right.
But the similarities are only half the story. “We have focused on the moments when their work is most related,” says Dr William Jeffett, the co-curator, “but there are clear divergences which are just as interesting.” Their responses to Velázquez’s “Las Meninas”, 1656, are good examples. Picasso began a series in 1957, chaotic and colourful. His “Infanta Margarita Maria” is packed with cubist iconography, tricky to decode but rooted in reality. In Dalí’s version, from 1958, the young girl is a distorted, ghostly figure. She lurks in the background, half present, half extraterrestrial. No need to weigh one against the other: just step back and enjoy the brilliance.
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