The analytical catalogue is extra a parade of individuals than of pictures, but it’s useful in documenting the extent and glamour of Picasso’s circle – a who’s who of the intelligentsia of the primary half of the twentieth century. But Picasso’s formalism was offset by a powerful figurative urge that centred on individuals known to the artist, particularly friends and lovers. The reductive linear style generally seems forbidding and fearsome, but the rawness and distortions enhance the mystique of the fashions if you realise who they are. Until this exhibition of a hundred and eighty works, I had by no means quite appreciated why artists of Picasso’s era were so keen on portraiture.
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