Picasso vs. Picabia, duel of brushes

[dropcap letter="U"]

n small detail, a postcard that Picasso (1881-1973) addressed to his friend, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, gives a clue to a meeting between him and Francis Picabia (1879-1953) in Barcelona, during a bullfighting event, when the man from Malaga had returned with the Ballets Russes and the second was taking refuge, in the midst of the First World War, and publishing the avant-garde magazine 391. It was in 1917, a year in which everything seemed possible in Catalonia, in Spain and in the world, at the zenith of the Great War and in a country shaken by the war conflict despite its proclaimed neutrality. And in what a way!

The peninsula experienced a deep social, political, economic and military crisis. What happened, especially in summer, marked the Spanish future: the lack of understanding between the different agents involved paved the way for the "pistolerismo" of the following years and the establishment of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship in 1923. This, the two painters, the man from Malaga and the Frenchman, son of a Spanish-Cuban, no longer suffered, but their artistic proposals are the fruit of a moment, of each moment, because their brush does not forget what surrounds it.

Both, however, did so from a particular and rampant individualism. Nothing gregarious. And that is why one might think that putting them face to face, confronting them, might be little more than a waste of time, a useless exercise. Something that, however, Aurélie Verdier, curator of the Centre Georges Pompidou, is in charge of refuting. There is a possible dialogue, there are points of connection and at the same time divergences that become interesting when raised.

Curator Verdier's proposal can be seen at the Casa Garriga Nogués of the Mapfre Foundation in Barcelona until next January 13 -one must hurry, then- in Picasso / Picabia. Painting in Question. Through 150 works, including documents, prints, drawings and paintings, the exhibition crosses the approach of both artists throughout their lives. Picabia admired Picasso. The latter, however, called himself Picabia "when he had something to reproach himself for, because the Frenchman always pointed out that he didn't know how to do enough," according to Verdier. To what extent that is a boutade, we do not know.

In the exhibition, the artistic interweaving, through nine thematic sections, starts from Cubism, a movement created by Picasso and Braque at the beginning of the twentieth century, and in which Picabia did not participate. It continues through the influence of the most extreme Dadaism, of which the latter was a fundamental figure, and which, in contrast, the Malaga-born artist shunned. They coincide on themes such as figures of women with mantillas and bulls, each from their own perspective. They also live a short distance apart, but without contact on the French Riviera, and while Picasso focuses his last works on the human figure and portraiture, the Frenchman takes a much less figurative path.

And despite the evident distance in approaches, a walk through the exhibition leaves us with an aftertaste of interstitial contact, a shared je ne sais quoi. This is the first occasion in which an exhibition dialogue is established between Picasso and Picabia, but not between the Malaga-born artist and other painters, having already been confronted, among others, with Dalí, Rusiñol, and Degas. In this case, it seems particularly interesting to contemplate the position that each of the painters establishes with the movements to which they are or are not related, Cubism and Dadaism, and how both leave Surrealism aside. The exhibition was previously seen at the Musée Granet in Aix en Provence, which co-produces it, and is part of Picasso-Méditerranée, a large international project promoted by the Picasso Museum in Paris.

This is undoubtedly one of the most interesting proposals in which to get lost these days. To avoid doubts, and to know in advance that you will not be disappointed by the visit, you can take a sample through the virtual tour that the Mapfre Foundation provides. Just a look at Picasso's Portrait of Dora Maar from 1937 and Picabia's Habia II, from the following year, already provides a clue to our itinerary. The duel of brushes does not end with the victory of one over the other, but rather complements and magnifies them.