The exhibition “Picasso, the effervescence of shapes”, running from 15 April to 28 August 2022, explores the place of wine and popular spirits in the work of Pablo Picasso, through a wide variety of media such as paintings, drawings, ceramics, films, etc. The Foundation for wine culture and civilisations has invited historian and art critic Stéphane Guégan, as scientific curator, to devise an exhibition for a general audience that is both original and ambitious.
Header photo of Pablo Picasso, Domaine Public (Wiki Commons)
Bringing together more than eighty works, thanks in particular to the exceptional participation of the Musée national Picasso-Paris and the Museu Picasso de Barcelona, the exhibition sheds new light on Pablo Picasso’s works and reveals the effervescent creativity that inspired him throughout his life.
With 5 chronologically themed sections, Picasso, the effervescence of shapes highlights for the first time the place of wine and spirits throughout the painter’s career, combining the intoxication of life, intoxication of the senses and intoxication of shapes.
Representations of cafés and drinkers, variations on glass and bottle during the Cubist period, striking, sometimes dramatic evocations steeped in Catholicism or Graeco-Roman mythology… the exhibition pays tribute to the artist’s prolific output and to the diversity of media used: painting, drawing, ceramics, sculpture.
Two original sequences at the heart of the exhibition also highlight Picasso’s fruitful relationships with poets (Guillaume Apollinaire and Paul Eluard, for example) and his work as a ceramicist.
Read more about La Cité du Vin and the exhibition.
Text by La Cité du Vin. Header photo of Pablo Picasso, Public domaine (via Wiki Commons)