paris: picasso discovers degas

Picasso first visited Paris in 1900, when the city's glamour and artistic prestige seemed to be at their height. In his late teens at the time, he stayed with Catalan friends in the artistic quarter, Montmartre, and reveled in the famous bars, cabarets, and street life. Degas was then in his sixties and lived nearby, and was still admired for his pioneering pictures of these subjects. By 1904, when Picasso settled in Paris, he had already responded to some of Degas's celebrated pictures—such as In a Café (L'Absinthe) and Woman Ironing—and made his first works in sculpture, a medium that obsessed Degas at the time. Both artists remained fascinated by the female nude, making scenes of bathing and hair-combing that distantly recalled their student studies and often echoed great paintings and sculptures from the past. As he became increasingly famous, Picasso continued to admire Degas's inventiveness with line, color, and form.

Picasso Looks at Degas

By Elizabeth Cowling and Richard Kendall
With additional contributions by Cécile Godefroy, Sarah Lees, and Montse Torras

The great Spanish painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) exhibited a lifelong fascination—some might say "obsession"—with the work and personality of French artist Edgar Degas (1834–1917). In this groundbreaking study, noted Degas scholar Richard Kendall and Picasso expert Elizabeth Cowling present well-documented instances of Picasso's direct responses to Degas's work, as well as more conceptual and challenging affinities between their oeuvres. Richly illustrated essays explore the artists' parallel interests in subjects including modern urban life, ballet dancers, and intimate activities such as bathing, as well as in the mediums of photography and sculpture. The book also provides the first extended analysis of Picasso's engagement with Degas's art in his final years, when he acquired several of the French artist's brothel monotypes and reworked some of them in his own prints. Offering many fresh ideas and a significant amount of new material about two of the most popular and influential artists of the modern era, this handsome book promises to make a lasting contribution to the literature on both artists.

Elizabeth Cowling is Professor Emeritus of History of Art at Edinburgh University, and an independent scholar and exhibition curator. Richard Kendall is Curator-at-Large at the Clark, as well as an independent scholar and exhibition curator. Cécile Godefroy is a researcher at the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte in Madrid. Sarah Lees is Associate Curator of European Art at the Clark. Montse Torras is Exhibitions Coordinator at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona.

368 pages, 11 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches
310 color and 9 black-and-white illustrations
2010
Published by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute
and the Museu Picasso, Barcelona
ISBN 978-0-300-13412-4
ISBN 978-0-931102-86-8