Picasso Challenging the Past Christopher Riopelle, Elizabeth Cowling, Susan Grace Galassi, Anne Robbins

This title lets you see the supreme modernist master alongside his artistic heroes. It tells the story of Picasso's artistic development and his passionate relationship with the European art tradition. It covers the Exhibition at the National Gallery, London, February 2009. From his earliest years Pablo Picasso was a passionate student of the European painting tradition. His memory for images was voracious, and he amassed an impressive art collection of his own. Naturally he was drawn to the Spanish masters Velazquez and Goya but also important to him were such figures as Rembrandt, Delacroix, Ingres, Manet and Cezanne. Picasso repeatedly pitted himself against these masters, taking up their signature themes, techniques and artistic concerns in audacious paintings of his own. Sometimes his 'quotations' were direct, other times highly allusive. Always, Picasso made the implicit case that it was he in the twentieth century who most forcefully reinvigorated the European tradition. This book showcases the technical dexterity, independence and vitality of Picasso's creative processes, for here we witness the daring transformation of the art of the past into, in Picasso's own words, 'something else entirely'. "Picasso: Challenging the Past" is a distillation of a much larger exhibition, entitled Picasso et les Maitres, organized by the Reunion des Musees Nationaux and the Musee Picasso, Paris, to be shown simultaneously at the Grand Palais, Musee du Louvre and Musee d'Orsay, Paris, from 6 October 2008 to 2 February 2009.

Christopher Riopelle is Curator of Post-1800 Painting at the National Gallery, London; he co-authored Renoir Landscapes: 1865-1883 (2007). Elizabeth Cowling is Professor Emeritus of History of Art at Edinburgh University. Her publications include Visiting Picasso: The Notebooks and Letters of Roland Penrose (2006). Susan Grace Galassi is Curator at the Frick Collection, New York. Anne Robbins is Assistant Curator of Post-1800 Painting at the National Gallery London. She wrote Cezanne in Britain (2006).

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