Review of Picasso Prints: The Vollard Suite at the British Museum

02/05/12

Picasso Prints: The Vollard Suite

The British Museum

3 May – 2 September 2012

“To me there is no past or future in art. If a work of art cannot live always in the present it must not be considered at all. The art of the Greeks, of the Egyptians, of the great painters who lived in other times, is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive today than it ever was.”

With an attitude like this, it is no surprise to see the plethora of classical motifs present in Picasso’s Vollard Suite, a set of 100 prints, currently on show for the first time in their entirety in a British public institution, at the British Museum. Named after avant-garde Paris art dealer and print publisher Ambroise Vollard, who was responsible both for giving Picasso his first Parisian exhibition (joint with fellow Spanish painter, Francisco Iturrino, in 1901), and for establishing his reputation as a printmaker, this particular set is a new acquisition for the museum, and, having never been shown in public before, is in pristine condition. 

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://diary.darlingcollective.com/?p=500