Throughout his artistic career Picasso was fascinated by both caricature and the idea of the grotesque: light and dark representations of the distorted human figure. Picasso: From Caricature to Metamorphosis of Style, which accompanies a major exhibition at the Museu Picasso, Barcelona, is the first book to examine the distortion of the figure as a central creative force in Picasso's art and a springboard for his continual process of stylistic metamorphosis.
The journey through Picasso's work takes us from the satirical illustration and portrait caricature of the 1890s to the radical distortion of the figure in Les Demoiselles D'Avignon and later Cubist portraits; from light-hearted vignettes of Diaghilev, Bakst and Apollinaire to the monstrous, Surrealist portraits of women of the 1920s-40s; from portraits of the artist as clown to the Verve series of meditations on the painter and his model. Finally we see Picasso as caricatured by his entourage: the tables are turned.
Caricatures, monsters, puppets and grotesque figures populate the pages of this book, which is illustrated with over 400 reproductions of key works by Picasso drawn from public and private collections worldwide: paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics and prints. More than 100 of the works reproduced are previously unpublished. With a series of interpretative essays by an international cast of distinguished Picasso scholars, the book is essential reading for all those with an interest in the life and work of a twentieth-century master.
Vareriano Bozal is a lecturer in the History of Art at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Laurent Gervereau has been Director of the Cinema Museum, Paris, curator of the Museum of Contemporary History, Paris and President of the International Association of History Museums. Werner Hofmann was Director of the Kunsthalle, Hamburg. Brigitte Léal is chief curator of the historical collections at the Pompidou Centre, and former curator of the Musee Picasso, Paris. Michel Melot works in the department of Architecture and Heritage at the French Ministry of Culture. Maria Teresa Ocaña is Director of the Museo Picasso, Barcelona.
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