A new exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland recontextualizes Pablo Picasso’s paintings by examining how his workspaces influenced his art.
Developed with Paris’ Musée Picasso, Picasso: From the Studio explores nine of the 105 spaces he called his own, setting the scene with paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and sketches, as well as photographs of Picasso working.
Littered with spent paint tubes, cigarette butts, and bicycle parts, each studio functioned as a “gravitational centre for the chaotic magic of his creativity,” the Financial Times wrote, and influenced him in ways both subtle and profound: Works originating from his low-ceilinged Paris studio, for instance, seemingly assume the claustrophobia of the Nazi occupation, while more remote settings often contributed to bouts of extreme productivity.