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Times
09-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Inside Picasso's studios: the secrets of the places where he lived and loved
Life is art. There are few artists for whom that's more true than for Picasso. You can chart the ups and downs of his romances through his canvases — and establish overlapping timelines; you can assess his emotional state; you can estimate his affluence (consistently increasing) or the size of the space he's working in (ditto). Even his interior scenes function as a kind of self-portrait. It's interior spaces that form the backbone of the forthcoming exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI), Picasso: From the Studio. Curated with the Musée Picasso in Paris, with a large number of loans from that elegant institution, it takes a chronological journey through the Spanish artist's career, via the key locations in France in which he worked. It will look at how the artist's environment influenced his output, from soon after his arrival in Paris from Barcelona at the start of the 20th century to his last home and studio at Mougins, through paintings, sculptures, ceramics and works on paper, photography and rarely seen film. There are more than 150 recorded places that Picasso made art throughout his life, but the exhibition begins around 1912, as Picasso and Georges Braque were egging each other on to develop cubism. Small assemblages and collages from this time, including the gallery's own 1913 collage Bottle and Newspaper, will feature alongside works made of scavenged materials: paper scraps, stencilled letters, canvas, wood, pliable tin, nails, sand and paint. These experiments show how the studio was 'the laboratory of his work', the exhibition's co-curator Joanne Snrech says, but their modest size reflects the ad hoc spaces in which he worked — easier to lug around Paris to the next ramshackle spot. By the Twenties Picasso was a success. He was collaborating with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, and having married the dancer Olga Khokhlova in 1918 was a darling of society. • Picasso or Goya: who created Spain's most important painting? As he holidayed on the newly fashionable Côte d'Azur, the sea, sunlight and the company of glam pals imbued Picasso's work with a sunny exuberance. These paintings (because Picasso worked everywhere, even on holiday) exude the heat of the Riviera — a rare landscape made at his summer studio in Juan-les-Pins, where he and Olga stayed in 1920, or the jolly Still Life with a Mandolin from 1924, both in the show. During the Thirties, though, all sorts of shifts happened. In 1927 Picasso, aged 45, had met 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter outside a Paris department store, and started a relationship with her. In 1930 he bought a manor house at Boisgeloup in Normandy, about 45 miles from his Paris home, establishing a studio on the light-filled second floor, and began dividing his time between it and Paris. Olga stayed in the city with their son, Paolo, during the week, so the painter was free to have his young mistress visit him often in Boisgeloup. They kept the relationship secret for eight years — goodness knows how, since Walter haunts his work throughout this period, her golden hair and almond-shaped eyes unmistakable even when distorted by cubism. Nearly all the show's works from this studio depict her, including a serene portrait from 1937, two years after the birth of their daughter, Maya, at which time Picasso tried to divorce Olga (she refused; they stayed married until her death in 1955) — and around the time that he met the photographer Dora Maar, of whom, inevitably, more later. Boisgeloup didn't just enable the indulgence of a new muse. A large outbuilding allowed him to more intensely explore sculpture, especially monumental heads and busts. You can guess the dominant subject. His next studio was on the Rue des Grands-Augustins in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district of Paris. Picasso liked it because the shabby 17th-century townhouse had a connection to Balzac as the residence for the painter Frenhofer, the main character in his novel The Unknown Masterpiece. It is where Picasso painted probably his second most famous work (the first being his 1907 masterpiece Les Demoiselles d'Avignon). Guernica was a commission from the Republican government for the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Exposition Internationale in Paris. • Read more art reviews, guides and interviews Maar found the vast attic studio for him — partly thanks to it being a meeting place for the resistance group Contre-attaque, of which she had been a member — and secured exclusive rights to document the painting's creation for the magazine Cahiers d'art. Quite different from Walter, whom the co-curator Janet McLean describes as 'dreamy and romantic', Maar was fiery and passionately left-wing, and as she documented his work, 'they were bouncing off each other … it was a meeting of minds for sure,' her political zeal influencing the direction of the painting. Sadly, Guernica doesn't travel, but several works from the period give a sense of the tension and confinement of those difficult years. 'I'm glad we're able to show these quite frugal paintings made in 1938, when there were a lot of refugees coming to France due to the Spanish Civil War,' McLean says. One such is Child with a Lollipop Sitting Under a Chair, donated by Maya to the Musée Picasso a few years ago. Painted in sombre monochrome, 'it's not a pretty picture of a child', McLean says; instead it has a huddled, claustrophobic feel. 'It's interesting to show Picasso connected to the world, because he really was.' It's not known why Picasso elected to remain in Paris as the Second World War intensified — he was unable to exhibit, the Nazi regime considered his work 'degenerate' — but he kept working away in his attic, photographed there in 1944 by Brassaï. A shot from this series will be in the exhibition, alongside Bust of a Woman with a Blue Hat, a portrait of Maar made the same year, just after their not-quite-definitive break-up (they continued to see each other intermittently until 1946). One of the aims of the exhibition, McLean says, is to show 'Picasso's versatility as an artist. While he considered himself primarily a painter, he was exceptional in his ability to turn his hand to any medium.' A wonderful example of this is his playful ceramics, influenced by the studio he took from 1948-55 at Vallauris, a small town on the Côte d'Azur. It was home to a number of ceramic factories, depicted in Picasso's 1951 canvas Smoke in Vallauris, where thick black puffs pump urgently into the sky from the wood-burning kilns. Inspired by Georges and Suzanne Ramié, the owners of the Madoura Pottery, he bought a villa nearby and set about learning from Suzanne, saying: 'I don't think I'm a ceramicist, next to ceramicists who are real ceramicists, I'm just […] an unfortunate amateur and an ignoramus. I try, I listen, I look, I try to pass my time.' He produced more than 3,600 pieces in just a few years, several of which will be on display, including a dove modelled ingeniously out of a few flops of folded clay. He got so into it that an American newspaper referred to him as 'left-wing ceramicist artist Picasso'. He was, at the time, active as part of the Movement for Peace and the French Communist Party. He enjoyed collaborating with his fellow artisans, and was active in the community, attending local bullfights and openings of pottery exhibitions, for which he designed the posters (free of charge), and portrayed his family life in pictures as part of a simple creative ideal. • My journey through the French region most famous for its artists A touching example of this is the 1954 canvas Claude drawing, Françoise and Paloma, a harmonious image depicting his two youngest children with their mother, the painter Françoise Gilot, whom he had met in 1943 (he 61, she 21) — except that Gilot is shown oddly only as an outline, curved protectively around her children. She had left him and returned to Paris with them the year before. Still, his time in Vallauris was transformative for his output and for the town. In 1949 he donated his sculpture L'Homme au mouton (Man with a sheep) — it's still on the market square — and in 1951 he created the War and Peace cycle in a local chapel. His presence, McLean says, 'revitalised the ceramics industry in that region'. Man of the people he may have been, but he was also very rich, and in 1955 he acquired La Californie, a des res in Cannes, where for the first time he lived and worked in the same space, which must have been inconvenient for his family (he had met his new partner, Jacqueline Roque, in 1952, when she was 26 and he was 70), given the rapid accumulation of artworks that filled every inch. The three adjoining rooms on the ground floor served as studio and living area, with rounded windows that opened onto a lush garden into which his sculpture spilled (the show features a great 1960-61 photograph of him there by André Sonine). He seems to have seen La Californie as a sort of extension of himself, judging by the vigour with which he depicts it in his art. 'This was the first time he had paid so much attention to his studio,' Snrech writes in the catalogue, 'to the extent that these works can be seen almost as self-portraits.' Several will be on display, including a magnificent 1956 canvas made in homage to Henri Matisse, who had died in 1954. The room is empty of people, but the painter's presence is suggested by paintings and objects, and in the centre a blank canvas sits expectantly on an easel. Picasso called these paintings 'interior landscapes'. Eventually the lack of privacy in fast-developing Cannes drove him out. In 1961 — the year that he married Jacqueline at the town hall in Vallauris — he moved to his final studio, the Notre Dame de Vie farmhouse in the nearby town of Mougins. Surrounded by work from across his life (an entire wing was dedicated to the display of his sculptures), this was the scene of a final flowering, a period of insane productivity. He produced about 200 paintings between September 1970 and June 1972, and he created more portraits of Jacqueline than of any of his other partners. In contrast to the hurly-burly of La Californie, he worked in relative solitude, assailed by memory — in a series of etchings, La Suite 347, created when he was 86, he returns to motifs such as bullfighters, circus performers, artists and models, mythology and literature, musketeers and animals — and by an urgent need to innovate, seen in the free, gestural brushstrokes of paintings such as Reclining Nude, 1967. It was here that he died, in April 1973, probably from a heart attack. According to Paris Match, Jacqueline called his doctor in the early hours of the morning; he died a few hours later, at 11.45am, at the age of 91. There was no will, of course (not his problem), and more than 45,000 unsold works strewn across his various studios. An artist, first, foremost and only, to the last. Picasso: From the Studio is at the National Gallery of Ireland, October 9 to February 22,
RTÉ News
07-08-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Things to do in Dublin this weekend (August 8-10)
From wildflower workshops in Raheny to an evening of art in Fade Street, there is plenty happening in Dublin this weekend. Dublin Comic Con 2025 DCC is taking part in the Convention Centre from 9-10 August, with celebrity guests including Frank Miller, Jamie Campbell Bower, Theo Rossi, Tia Carrere, Vincent D'Onfrio, and many more. You can also meet a host of comic creators, international cosplayers, SFX Industry pros, artists, fans and professionals throughout the weekend of workshops, demos, and activities. Guided by artist Dave West, participants will explore the essentials of open-air painting on Friday, 8 August. Aimed at those aged 16 and over, the session will be held on the inspiring front lawn at the National Gallery of Ireland from 11.00 - 13.30. Tickets cost €45. Taking place at Fade Street Studios on Friday, 9 August, this special evening brings together The Ink Factory and PIERCED teams for a one-of-a-kind exhibition of artful skateboards and piercing-inspired objects — bold reflections of body art, imagination, and identity. This is a full-day creative experience designed to reconnect you with your inner artist and explore creativity as a form of self-expression and well-being. Ticket prices vary. On Friday, 8 August, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra will host an evening of orchestral storytelling under the baton of Anna Sułkowska-Migoń. The evening begins with Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, followed by a performance from RTÉ CO oboist Suzie Thorn, who will play Strauss' Oboe Concerto. Ticket prices range from €15-€42.50. Get ready for a thrilling night of musical theatrics at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. They are showing an all-new Irish production of Little Shop of Horrors - coming to the stage for the very first time! This beloved musical, packed with unforgettable songs and quirky characters, is set to bloom like never before. Recommended for ages 11+, attendees under 16 must be accompanied by a parent/guardian aged 18+. Dublin Horse Show Since it was first held in 1864, the Horse Show has become a Dublin institution. A celebration of Ireland's affinity with the horse as well as a chance to dress up to the nines, the event is a hit among guests every year. This year's show will once again take place in the RDS, running from 6-10 August. On Sunday, 10 August, a BIG STRETCH guided yoga class to help raise vital funds for the DSPCA. Catherine of 'Yoga With Cat' will lead the class on the beautiful grounds of the Pet Memorial Garden at the DSPCA, Mount Venus Road, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16. Kicking off at 10:30am, tickets cost €25. This wholesome event will be taking place in The Red Stables, Raheny, on Saturday from 10am - 5pm. Pop in, paint your terracotta pot, learn about biodiversity, and pick out seeds to plant and watch grow! Tickets cost €11.70.
Irish Post
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Post
The art of Harry Clarke explored in Coventry
AS PART of the Coventry Irish Society's extended programme of events, GERRY MOLUMBY gave a talk on the life and legacy of renowned Irish stained glass designer Harry Clarke. The society learnt about the artist's life as an illustrator, prior to embarking on a career as a stained glass artist. The Dublin-born artist, who died at the age of 42, has left a body of works that can be seen across the world. More information on the Coventry Irish Society's work and events can be found on their website HERE Mother of Sorrows by Harry Clarke (National Gallery of Ireland) Annie Curran and June Connelly Annie Curran and June Connelly Marie Berry, Maggie Turner and Maura Boland Gerry Molumby Coventry Irish Society's Liz Flannery, Manisha O'Mally, Caroline Brogan, Tomás Spain and Margaret Campbell with Gerry Molumby
Irish Examiner
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Art: Stellar line-up at Morgan O'Driscoll's online auction
John Shinnors, Patrick Scott, Sir William Orpen, Harry Kernoff and Dan O'Neill are amongst the stellar lineup of Irish artists featured at Morgan O'Driscoll's Irish art online auction, which runs until Monday week (July 28). Dan O'Neill's Don Quixote (Self-Portrait),€6,000-€9,000, was in the collection of the late Gerald Goldberg, former Lord Mayor of Cork. It featured in the sale of contents from his Rochestown Road residence by Mealy's back in 2004. Sir William Orpen's Market Place at Cany, once in the Orpen Family collection, was shown at the Orpen Centenary Exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland in 1978. The mixed-media work is estimated at €3,000-€4,000. James Brohan's 'Harvest Time' at Morgan O'Driscoll's online sale. An oil-on-board by Harry Kernoff, Clare Island from Foynes, Co Limerick, on the River Shannon, dates to 1929 and is estimated at €3,000-€5,000. An oil-on-linen by John Shinnors, Falling, dates to 2000-01 and has an estimate of €8,000-€12,000. The catalogue is online and the sale will be on view in Skibbereen on Thursday and Friday (July 24-25) and on Monday week.
Irish Examiner
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Newly-acquired Jack B Yeats painting puts Bloody Sunday in the frame
ONE of the few overtly political works painted by Jack B Yeats has been acquired by the National Gallery of Ireland. Though Singing The Dark Rosaleen, Croke Park (1921) does not explicitly reference the shootings at Croke Park on Bloody Sunday in November 1920, the sombre tone evokes the tragedy. On that day, during a Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary, Auxiliaries of the RIC opened fire on spectators, killing 14 civilians, including Tipperary footballer Michael Hogan, and injuring 60 others. The painting is a deeply personal response by Yeats to this event. Sketchbooks in the gallery's Yeats archive contain multiple depictions of hurling matches at Croke Park and indicate his familiarity with the setting. The painting was stolen in the Dunsany Castle robbery in 1990, subsequently returned to the Plunkett family in 1995, sold at Sotheby's for £500,000 and bought by Ben Dunne. The Mary and Ben Dunne Collection was sold by Gormley's in 2022, and the painting was purchased by the National Gallery last year with government support and a contribution from a private donor. Read More Online sales of affordable art reflect current global trends
