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BRISBANE, Australia: If he wasn’t busy changing the art world with a stroke of his paintbrush, the great Picasso (1881 – 1973) wouldhave been a really good karang guni man.
Except that, unlike your usual rag-and-bone man, he’d hoard more than sell. And the guy had way better taste.
That was one observation we had after stepping out of Pablo Picassoand His Collection. The ongoing exhibit at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art features an extensive assortment of artworks and other items by the late modern artist, fondly remembered by many as the co-founder of the Cubist art movement in the early 20th century.
But after this, we’ll remember him most as that famous guy who kepteverything.
You’ve got over 150 artworks from his personal collection, which includes paintings by the art world’s biggest names like Degas, Cezanne and Matisse, as well as some fine antique African masks. There’re also 30 of his own works on display, not to mention small items like letters and sketches from artist friends.
It even has some black-and-white photographs that reveal a man clearly in need of a bigger studio.
In some of these, you’ll see unframed paintings scattered on the floor or propped against each other haphazardly. Which may prompt you to blurt out something along the lines of: “Oh my god, is he using a Renoir as a placemat? Alamak, did he just spill coffee on a Gauguin?”
That’s an exaggeration of Cubist proportions, by the way.
THE COLLECTOR
While Picasso’s sense of interior design will leave neat-freak art collectors aghast, his manner of obtaining some of the artworks will make them green with envy.
For example, a self-portrait by Joan Miro was given to him for free by an art dealer just so it could stimulate business (read: Bragging rights that Picasso had “acquired” a painting from him).
It also didn’t hurt that Picasso was the artist on everyone’s lips, which meant he could get discounts from galleries and artists, if they weren’t already falling over themselves giving him a work for free, like French poet Jacques Prevert’s painting called To Picasso. Personally, we think “I Hope You Like It, Boss” would have been a better title.
The Spanish artist also had the luxury of being able to swap paintings with other collectors. He had acquired Paul Cezanne’s The Sea at L’Estaque from a banker in exchange for one of his own works.
Finally, being one of the leaders of the modern art movement meant that he could just call up his main rival and arrange for an exchange.
This was how he got Henri Matisse’s Tulips and Oysters on a Black Background. He also got a hold of Matisse’s portrait of his daughter Marguerite by swapping his own Pitcher, Bowl and Lemon.
But the highlight of Picasso’s bargain-hunting talents is revealed in how he got a hold of Portrait of a Woman by Primitivist artist Henri Rousseau.
Sometime in 1907, Picasso passed by a second-hand shop by chance and spotted the large portrait. He got it for what the liner notes revealed was “a very modest price”.
There’s a lesson we could all learn here. And that’s never to underestimate Cash Converters.
THE COPYCAT
Of course, hoarding art wasn’t Picasso’s main ambition in life. Rather, it was learning from it by way of “stealing”.
We’re just paraphrasing a quote from the man himself who had once said he doesn’t “borrow” from other artists but “steal” from them.
That was quite evident in how the exhibit was laid out.
Anne Baldassari, director of the Picasso Museum in Paris, where the collection comes from, said this was the first time they’re showing his collection alongside his own works outside of Europe.
The result is the impression thatPicasso’s genius lay not only in creating original works but innovating on and reacting to others’ as well.
One sees the beginnings of Cubism in the geometric volumes of Cezanne’s La mer or Chateau noir, for example.
Elsewhere, the French artist’sFive Bathers gets a Picasso “remake” 40 years later with Bathers Watchingan Aeroplane. A realist still life from the 1700s like Jean Baptiste Chardin’s painting of kitchen utensils and a piece of lamb get a Cubist makeover in the ’50s with his own still life of a goat’s skull, bottle and candle.
And then of course, he was known to irritate Matisse by making Matisse-like paintings like Nude in a Garden (see box story above).
For people who idolise artistic genius, an exhibit like Pablo Picasso and his Collection can be an eye-opener.
After all, would you honestly have thought that the guy who changed the face of the art world was actually an inventive copycat, not to mention a voracious hoarder?
If you have plans to head to Brisbane via Singapore Airlines, keep your boarding pass. You can get a 20-per-cent discount off the museum’s entry fee of A$20 ($65) and 10 per cent off merchandise. The exhibit runs until Sept 14. - TODAY/ra
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