Picasso/Lautrec From 17 October 2017 to 21 January 2018 Curators: Francisco Calvo Serraller and Paloma Alarcó

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1 Picasso/Lautrec From 17 October 2017 to 21 January 2018 Curators: Francisco Calvo Serraller and Paloma Alarcó The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza presents Picasso/Lautrec, the first monographic exhibition devoted to comparing these two great masters of modern art. Although their artistic link has been repeatedly established by literature and contemporary critics, this is the first time their works have been displayed alongside each other in an exhibition. The show also examines this fascinating relationship from new viewpoints, as it does not merely explore the cliché of the young Picasso as an admirer of Lautrec in Barcelona and his early years in Paris, but traces the latter s lingering influence throughout the Spanish artist s lengthy career, including his final period. Curated by Professor Francisco Calvo Serraller, professor of the department of Art History at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, and Paloma Alarcó, chief curator of Modern Painting at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Picasso/Lautrec brings together more than a hundred works from some sixty public and private collections from all over the world, grouped around the themes that interested both artists: caricature portraits; nightlife in cafés, cabarets and theatres; the harsh reality of marginal individuals; the spectacle of the circus; and the erotic universe of brothels. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Albi, 1864 Château Malromé, Saint-André-du-Bois, 1901) and Pablo Picasso (Málaga, 1881 Mougins, 1973) never met. By the time Picasso visited Paris for the first time in October 1900, Lautrec was seriously ill and died prematurely the following year. Even so, Lautrec s radical oeuvre and his conception of modernity made a very powerful impact on the young Images, from left to right: With the sponsorship of: Herni de Toulouse-Lautrec. In a Private Dining Room (At the Rat Mort), c The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London / Pablo Picasso. The Wait (Margot), Paris, spring Museu Picasso, Barcelona More information and images: Paseo Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza Press Office: del Prado, Madrid. Tel / Fax prensa@museothyssen.org; With the collaboration of: 1

2 Picasso. Through him, Picasso discovered the many facets of modern society, which influenced his approach to art. Lautrec s artistic career lasted barely fifteen years, whereas Picasso s spanned more than seven decades. Both were brilliant artists from childhood, were attracted by Paris during their youth and rejected the academic teachings imposed on them, and both borrowed successively from very similar historical sources, such as the French artists Ingres and Degas as well as El Greco. But above all, their mastery of drawing was one of the key factors that gave meaning to both artists oeuvre. Both Lautrec and Picasso drew compulsively throughout their lives, had a special fondness for line and caricature, and filled hundreds of notebooks with extraordinarily skilled drawings from a very early age. It can be said that both men thought and expressed themselves in drawing and that any new work was preceded by endless testing and experimentation on paper. Divided into five sections based on the themes that linked the two artists worlds symbolically and formally Bohemians, Underworld, Wanderers, Elles and Hidden Eros Picasso/Lautrec also provides an insight into the evolution of contemporary art. Lautrec. Jane Avril, c , Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts / Picasso. Bust of Smiling Woman, 1901, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid 2 BOHEMIANS Lautrec soon became aware of the extraordinary ability of caricature to probe his sitters personality. He made many caricatures of himself and exploited his unusual appearance. In 1893, he portrayed himself on the reverse of the poster Jane Avril on the Japanese Divan, drawing or reading the newspapers according to some interpretations with his characteristic hat. Picasso also used caricature to experiment with his own image in Picasso in a Top Hat (1901), where the prostitutes in the background emulate the nocturnal settings of Lautrec s works. The same is true of the portrait painted that year of the writer Gustave Coquiot caricaturised as a libertine watching a cabaret performance; and of the female portraits he showed in his first exhibition held in Paris in 1901 Woman with a Plumed Hat, Woman with a Cape and Bust of a Smiling Woman painted in the same characteristic style and pointillist technique used by the French artist in works such as Jane Avril (c ). UNDERWORLD Lautrec was one of the first artists to break away from the old hierarchies and blaze a trail towards a new artistic language that incorporated aspects of mass culture. The prolific French artist left an unrivalled repertoire of images of a marginal and bohemian environment in his paintings and colourful commercial posters. Woman in a Café (1886) is a moving example of his masterful depictions of solitary women in cafés; others such as At the Café: The Customer and the Anaemic Cashier (1898) and In a Private Dining Room (at the Rat Mort) (c. 1899) are caustic portrayals of bar scenes of

3 3 Montmartre. Lautrec also painted the famous stars of the night shows, the singers Aristide Bruant and Yvette Guilbert, and the cabaret artists La Goulue and Jane Avril; the latter was a great friend of Lautrec s, whose image became firmly established thanks to the painter s posters. Like Lautrec, Picasso developed an insatiable curiosity for the excesses of Parisian nightlife. In The Moulin Rouge (1901), he exaggerates the silhouettes, heightening the figures caricature-like appearance and his satirical vision of sexual relations in the private rooms in cafés. He takes a similar approach in The Wait (Margot), a depiction of a courtesan or pierreuse sitting in a café executed with loose, expressive brushstrokes and bright colours that exaggerate her makeup, and The Diners, both dated Lautrec. At the Café: The Customer and the Anaemic Cashier, 1898 Kunsthaus Zürich / Picasso. The Diners, Paris, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence The world of the circus, inhabited by riders, clowns, tumblers and acrobats, was powerfully present in the imagination of Picasso and Toulouse-Lautrec. Their fascination with the playful and spontaneous side of the circus and its visual magic was accompanied by an identification with the harlequin and the clown, marginal beings with whom both artists found similarities with the figure of the artist in modern society. Lautrec was particularly interested in equestrian acts and, while recovering from his health problems and alcoholism in Neuilly hospital in 1899, he made numerous drawings on this subject from memory, such as At the Circus: Horsewoman. Classical Dressage. The Bow and At the Circus: Entering the Ring. WANDERERS Lautrec. At the Circus: Entering the Ring, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles / Picasso. Seated Harlequin, Paris, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Museum Berggruen Beginning in 1902, Picasso shifted towards a more melancholic and dramatic approach, and his harlequins and tumblers personified the outcasts of Parisian nightlife. The Frugal Meal (1904), one of his first forays into engraving, is a good example of the tragic vein that characterises this period. This alienation is also found in Poor Man s Meal (1903 4) and The Milk Bottle (1905). Works such as Woman from Majorca (1905), a female acrobat portrayed as the sorceress Circe, Ulysses s mistress, and Seated Harlequin, dating from the same year, attest to the evident survival of Lautrec s influence during Picasso s rose period. ELLES Prostitution was another subject in which Picasso displayed close affinities with Lautrec. However, the French artist s empathetic approach is far removed from Picasso s erotic and sometimes pornographic

4 gaze. During the year he lived with prostitutes in the maison close on the Rue des Moulins, Lautrec portrayed them at their toilette, dressing, pampering each other, playing cards or simply sitting on a divan looking bored in compositions such as Those Ladies in the Dining Room ( ) and The Divan (c. 1893), as well as in various toilette scenes like Woman Curling her Hair (1891) and the prints of Elles, a portfolio of ten lithographs he engraved in Picasso comes close to this compassionate approach in his paintings of women suffering from syphilis inspired by the sketches he made at the hospital of Saint Lazare, such as Woman with Bangs, executed in Lautrec. The Redhead in a White Blouse, 1889 Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid / Picasso. Woman with Bangs, Barcelona, Baltimore Museum of Art, The Cone Collection, formed by Dr Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland HIDDEN EROS Erotic paintings were traditionally confined to reserved rooms and this practice of concealment continued until well into the twentieth century. In 1884, Lautrec painted La Grosse Maria, Venus of Montmartre, a powerful nude that defies all previous canons. The model has been identified as Marie-Clémentine, an acrobat at the Molier circus who later became Suzanne Valadon, the self-taught painter of Montmartre. Influenced by the nudes Degas showed at the Impressionists last exhibition in 1886, Lautrec painted several works on the same subject but with more symbolic and delicate erotic connotations, such as Red-Headed Nude Crouching (1897) and Bed (1898), one of his last paintings on prostitution. Lautrec. Bed, Collection of Ann and Gordon Getty, San Francisco / Picasso. Lying Nude Woman (Nude with Crossed Legs), 1965 Musée d'art moderne, Belfort; gift of Maurice Jardot Picasso took an earthlier and sometimes violent erotic approach to sexual themes in early nudes like Jeanne (Reclining Woman) and the more pornographic Pipo, both executed in 1901, as well as in the last ones he produced, Lying Nude Woman (1965), Venus and Cupid (1968) and The Couple (1969), in which the forms are excessive and disfigured. Towards the end of his life he returned to the theme of the whorehouse with the same aggressive eroticism of Les Demoiselles d Avignon, which is present in the preparatory drawings of Cahier no. 7 and the tapestry of the painting, executed in

5 EXHIBITION INFORMATION Title: Picasso/Lautrec Organiser: Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza Dates: From 17 October 2017 to 21 January 2018 Curators: Francisco Calvo Serraller, professor of the department of Art History at the Universidad Complutense, Madrid, and Paloma Alarcó, chief curator of Modern Painting at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza Technical curator: Carlota Luelmo, department of Modern Painting at the Museo Nacional Thyssen- Bornemisza Number of works: 112 Publications: Catalogue with texts by Francisco Calvo Serraller and Paloma Alarcó, available in Spanish and English; educational guide; and digital publication on the free Quiosco Thyssen app for tablets and smartphones, in Spanish and English PRACTICAL INFORMATION: Address: Paseo del Prado , Madrid Opening times: Tuesday to Sunday, from 10am to 7pm; Saturday, from 10am to 9pm. Last entry one hour before closing Prices: Full-access ticket: Permanent collection and temporary exhibitions: - General admission: 12 - Reduced admission: 8 for visitors aged over 65, pensioners, students with proof of status and Large Families - Free admission: children under 12 and officially unemployed Spanish citizens Advance ticket sales at the Museum s ticket desks, on its website, and at tel Audio guide, available in several languages More information: PRESS INFORMATION: Main Lenders to the exhibition: Museu Picasso, Barcelona - Courtauld Institute of Art, London - Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest - Museum Berggruen, Berlin - Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand - Musée d'orsay, Paris - The Museum of Modern Art, NY - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY - Baltimore Museum of Art - Denver Art Museum - Los Angeles County Museum of Art - Hammer Museum, Los Angeles - The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles - Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena - The Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence - San Diego Museum of Art - Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden - Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal - Foundation E. G. Bührle, Zurich - Kunsthaus Zürich - Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz Picasso para el Arte - The State Pushkin Museum, Moscow. And with the special collaboration of the Musée national Picasso, Paris 5