Picasso's etchings on display

Provided to China Daily

The 100 plates fall into six parts, while they need to be appreciated in their entirety to be a reflection of Picasso's life changes over time, as well as his anxieties over the worsening political situation at the dawn of World War II.

Picasso's engravings exhibited in China for first time

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For example, the Minotaur (the half-man-and-half-bull creature in Greek mythology) featured in Picasso's art is a reoccurring image in the set. He first appears as a tender, gloomy lover and later becomes a blind, weak loser.

Art critics suggest it indicates Picasso's marital vicissitudes juggling between his wife, Olga Khokhlova, and Marie-Therese Walter, his mistress and muse 28 years his junior.

The Vollard Suite is a study in etching for Picasso and the artist used a number of techniques, including aquatinting, dry point and hot embossing.

Vollard Suite gives viewers the feeling of looking down a small hallway of Picasso's artistic and personal life, says Alicia Gomet, Spanish curator from the OCI museum.

"Picasso carried out a profound self-examination of his contradictory feelings and impulses, in a way much like writing visual diaries. The set is a representative testament to his creative eruption when in the 1930s he experimented with different art styles," she says.

 

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