site.btaExhibition of Drawings by Picasso Formally Opens on Wednesday

An exhibition of drawings by Picasso from the collection of the National Gallery will be formally opened on Wednesday. The works are put on display at Kvadrat 500 from December 20 until May 18 2025, organizers said.

BTA is a media partner of the event.

“The National Gallery's collection includes 21 graphic works by Picasso (1881–1973), thematically connected to his own and other authors' literary texts, as well as personal experiences and insights. These works reveal the artist’s passion and virtuosity in drawing, achieved through the techniques of lithography, etching, engraving, and aquatint, showcasing the material's potential, the play of black and white spaces, and the expressive line,” the team explains.

Between January 1957 and August 1959, Picasso created the poem “The Burial of the Count of Orgaz” (El entierro del conde de Orgaz) using the method of automatic writing. The title references the famous painting by Spanish artist El Greco (1541–1614). In 1966 and 1967, at his estate in Mougins, France, Picasso created 12 copper plates for etchings to accompany the text. The book, with a foreword by Rafael Alberti, was published in 1969 in a limited edition of 263 copies, 220 of which were accompanied by the original engravings. Seven of these engravings are featured in the current exhibition.

The series “Moving Sands” (1965), represented by four pieces in the gallery’s collection, consists of 10 works created to accompany a poem of the same name by poet Pierre Reverdy (1889–1960). Through his participation in this project, Picasso paid tribute to the memory of his close friend and a key figure in 20th-century modern literature. Picasso destroyed the printing plates after the edition was completed.

According to Picasso's biographers, he received an invitation from the poet Louis Aragon to create a poster for the upcoming World Peace Congress in Paris in April 1949. Thus was born the iconic dove, one of the most vivid symbols of the international peace movement in post-war Europe. The exhibition features the popular colour lithograph, created in 1952, the team added.

The National Gallery is launching a series of exhibitions at Kvadrat 500, the aim of which is to introduce the public to the museum's rich and diverse collection of foreign prints, which includes works by Francisco Goya, Eugène Carrière, Auguste Rodin, Henri Fantin-Latour, Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Roy Lichtenstein and others.