From Africa to the Americas

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Large Still Life with Pedestal Table, Paris, March 11, 1931, oil on canvas. Musée national Picasso-Paris, gift in lieu Pablo Picasso, 1979. © Estate of Picasso / SODRAC (2018). Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY / René-Gabriel Ojéda.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Women at Their Toilette, Cannes, January 4, 1956, oil on canvas. Musée national Picasso-Paris, gift in lieu Pablo Picasso, 1979. © Estate of Picasso / SODRAC (2018). Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY / Mathieu Rabeau.
Edson Chagas (born in 1977), Emmanuel C. Bofala, Tipo Passe, 2014, chromogenic print. Private collection. Courtesy of the artist.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Head of a Bearded Man, 1938 (?), oil on canvas. Musée national Picasso-Paris, gift in lieu Pablo Picasso, 1979. © Estate of Picasso / SODRAC (2018). Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Jean-Gilles Berizzi.
Artist from New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Malanggan ceremonial carving, early 20th c., carved wood, pigment. Paris, Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, on loan from the Bibliothèque Municipale, Versailles. Photo © Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac / Art Resource, NY / Claude Germain.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Mother and Child, Paris, summer 1907, oil on canvas. Musée national Picasso-Paris, gift in lieu Pablo Picasso, 1979. © Estate of Picasso / SODRAC (2018). Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / René-Gabriel Ojéda.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Bust of a Man (study for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon), Paris, spring 1907, oil on canvas. Musée national Picasso-Paris, gift in lieu Pablo Picasso, 1979. © Estate of Picasso / SODRAC (2018). Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY / René-Gabriel Ojéda.
Zanele Muholi (born in 1972), Phila I, Parktown, 2016, photographic mural. © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg, and Yancey Richardson, New York.

Picasso and beyond at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Writer Adrienne Matei

On May 12, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts opens From Africa to the Americas: Face-To-Face Picasso, Past and Present, in which 100 works by Pablo Picasso are situated in dialogue with both traditional and contemporary works by artists of African descent, including Omar Ba, Edson Chagas, and Zina Saro-Wiwa. A long-time admirer of African art, Picasso once claimed “the greatest artistic emotion I have felt was when I was suddenly struck by the sublime beauty of the sculptures carved by anonymous artists in Africa.”

In this exhibit, 27 pieces from Picasso’s personal collection help to further illuminate his interest in non-Western creation, in a time when many masks and talismans were oft regarded as ethnographic curiosities rather than fine art. In its totality, the exhibit offers a pan-national perspective on an iconoclast and his influences.

From Africa to the Americas: Face-To-Face Picasso, Past and Present runs May 12 to September 16, 2018, at the Musée des Beaux Arts.

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