Royal Academy, London From a cut-out dove Picasso made aged eight to the sketches that led to Guernica, this spectacular show displays a relentless creativity on any paper that came to handWherever he went, whatever he did, Picasso left a paper trail of sketchbooks, studies, oils and gouaches, pencil and ink, crayon and charcoal drawings, prints (woodcuts and linocuts, lithographs, etchings, engravings) and other works on laid and wove papers, Japanese papers, watermarked Arches paper, embossed papers, newspaper, wallpaper, hotel headed notepaper, menu cards, wrapping paper, napkins and any old scraps and bits of card that came to hand. He accumulated paper, squirrelled it away, and never threw anything out. He was a hoarder.Every kind of paper has its qualities - even the most disposable, or the nastiest wallpaper pattern. All of which Picasso was alert to, a connoisseur of the cheap and mass produced as well as the handmade and the specialised, as he folded, glued together, cut and tore, basted in ink and washes, drew on and rubbed into. Paper for him was a medium (just as was paint, clay or plaster) to be manipulated. And as he worked he was always finding, losing and refinding his subjects, whether it was a fish or a faun, a woman or a guitar, a portrait or a skull. The multiple transformations he performed in his art evidence his unnerving vitality, his recklessness and confidence, his altogether too-muchness. Continue reading...
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