Picasso Pathology

A personal view of Picasso and Paper, a major exhibition at the Royal Academy. The collection of over three hundred works covers drawings, collages and prints with key paintings including precocious and magneti examples from the artist's childhood in Malàga, academic drawings, early works in Paris, Horta del Ebro and Gosol, introducing the Blue and Rose perods, leading to the revolutionary development of Cubism; the iconoclastic masterpiece Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, his designs for Parade 1917 by Eric Satie, the Neo-Classical period of the 1920s, and works of resistance during the War years of 1939-45. The post-war move to the South of France show an unceasing prolific invention, exploring themes of Life, Love and Memory, culminating the stark self portrait in his last days. The whole body of work constitutes a consistent and critical statement of pictorial fact