31st May 2013 - 1st September 2013
The first major monographic exhibition about the self-portraits of Picasso. The period in time of this artistic genre covers some seventy eight years, from his childhood (1894), to shortly before his death (1972). The self-portrait was used by Picasso with different aims in mind: in some he bears witness to biographical facts; in others he projects thoughts, whims, amusements, and in nearly all of them, he makes use of his own face as a laboratory for the most varied formal experimentations. The exhibition puts on show all these different phases and concepts, focusing especially on the traditional self-portrait, but without forgetting other more subtle derivations of this genre. Chronologically, the main part of Picasso’s self-portraits came to an end in 1907, the same year in which he painted Les demoiselles d’Avignon. Thereafter, there are periods where he picks up again, around the year 1917, towards the end of the nineteen sixties, or in 1972.