‘Painting is a blind man’s profession.  The artist paints not what he sees but what he feels and what he tells himself about what he has seen’ – Picasso.

Coinciding with the major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, this study morning explores Picasso’s subversive and creative play with the traditions of portraiture.  Since its emergence as a distinct genre in the 16th Century, portraiture has depended on shifting concepts of ‘the real’ and notions of likeness. The National Portrait Gallery exhibition has brought together portraits from all periods of Picasso’s career in a range of different media demonstrating his fluency between illusionistic drawing from life to ironic and expressive caricature to mythical and dream-like inventions from memory.   The portraits are also a testimony to his complex relations and intimacies, a form of social and autobiographical commentary.

LECTURER: Lizzie Perrotte

COST
£75.00