Assuming Buckingham Palace is near the middle of London (pop 8.67 million in 2022), we must get from the southeast (Bermondsey) to the northwest (Notting Hill), a nearly one-hour Uber ride. On the way we do several drive-by's: the Houses of Parliment (Charles Barry, mid-19th century), Big Ben (Augustus Pugin, mid-19th century), and Westminster Abbey (11th-13th centuries). We even get a sideways look at the Palace.
The Uber drops us on Westbourne Park Road. Crowds of 'grammers' are posing on the stoops of the colorful row houses. We wonder how the inhabitants feel about all the tourists posing under their porticos.
From here we walk north to the Portobello Road Market. The crowd thickens, and we realize why the Ubers stop on Westbourne.
Portobello Road Market
The first stalls have fresh fruit and vegetables, but the fare quickly switches to flea-market knick-knacks and odd-ball antiques. In Tavistock Piazza there is an Open Art Market, where local artists sell posters, cards, crafts, and jewelry.
The Market continues under and past the elevated tracks and highway. A large area for vintage clothes is on the left, the Portobello Green Market, and food stalls are on the right.
Slowly, we make our way through the shoppers, sightseers, and noise to Oxford Gardens. The throng thins. We have timed tickets, so call another Uber to return to the city center.
The British Museum's Great Court
After a quick lunch, we arrive at the British Museum (Robert Smirke, 19th century) and wait for friends in the stunning Great Court (Foster + Partners, 2000). This is a monumental, enclosed space surrounding the old, cylindrical Reading Room (Sydney Smirke, 1854-57). Thus, the gravity-defying, tessellated-frame glass roof covers a rectangular area with a round 'hole', forming a continuous vault of fan-like geometries with sky-blue gradients.
Though mobbed, it is remarkably quiet; the pigeons have found a restful spot for sunning (top image). The atrium serves as a wonderful gathering point and entrance to all areas of the Museum. And it is a spectacular place to enjoy art – as the crowd is fixed on the roof, we may calmly enjoy a few masterpieces. The Lion of Knidos (Hellenistic Turkey, 2nd Century BC) lays prone near the 'Families Desk', and a pair of Heads of Amenhotep III (18th Dynasty Egypt, c1370 BC) flank the west entrance to Room 4 (Egyptian Sculpture), across from the Collections Shop.
Continuing around the Great Court, Stone Figures (Qing Dynasty, 17th century) guard the north entrance and Room 24 (Living and Dying). Just above, visitors cross a translucent bridge connecting the Great Court Restaurant. The Court Café is in the northeast corner, marked by two Totem Poles (Haida, c1850).
We stop for a moment to admire the Ionic column capitals and bases, and how the stone flooring of the new construction is cut to fit around the old. We finish our loop around the Great Court in the southeast corner, near the Youth on Horseback (Roman, 2nd Century), just past the Book Shop with the sunlight streaming down.
Our timed tickets are for the Picasso Printmaker (Pablo Picasso) show. It's on the fourth floor.
Picasso Printmaker – Paris 1904-15
The special exhibit is in Room 90 (Prints and Drawings), and broken into chronological chapters. We make our way past a Moai (Rapanui, 11th-13th century) ominously named Hoa Hakananaiʻa (literally "stolen friend") and onto the comically under-sized elevators, given the needs of the visitors.
We enter Room 90 and face an orange endcap with Le Repas Frugal (etching & scraper, 1904). The label identifies this print as Picasso's first, resembling work from his Blue Period. Perhaps the orange accent wall helps bring out the blue. The print's intriguing backstory involves the patterned scratches in the upper right corner, remnants of a landscape etching by fellow-Spaniard Joan González (1868-1908). Rather than detract, these shadows add life to a lifeless scene. Even knowing that Picasso is scavenging printing plates underscores the gaunt, hungry nature of its subject.
The early 1900's generally marks the end of Picasso's Blue Period, moves into a time of great experimentation, and eventually leads to Picasso's Cubist phase. The dancing figure of Salomé (drypoint, 1905) and the grouping the Study for Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (bodycolour & watercolour, 1906-7; painting, 1907) show hints of his early 'analytic' work, as well as his fascination with Fauvism and primitive art.
Nature Morte au Compotier (drypoint & scraper, 1908-9) and L'homme au Chien (Rue Schoelcher) (etching & scraper, 1915) typify his abstracting and graphically flattening the images to 'reflect the true experience of seeing', and his representing multiple viewpoints within a single frame.
Room 90 is divided by a panel with a timeline of Picasso's life, so we may switch from the display cases and back to the timeline as we move through the work.
Picasso Printmaker – Between the Wars 1923-39
In the 1920's and 30's, Picasso fully incorporates printmaking into his artistic practice. He explores several methods of printmaking as he rises from competency to mastery and beyond: etching, drypoint, lithography, and sugar aquatint.
Deux Femmes Regardant un Modèle Nu (drypoint, scraper & etching 1923) shows a trio of women in a grouping reminiscent of The Three Graces, among other 'classical themes' that Picasso would often revisit. Figure, Baigneuse à la Cabine (lithograph, 1929) begins to reveal his 'synthetic' Cubism as well as an interest in Surrealism, with ghostly forms in the background.
It's genius that the curatorial staff has drawn our attention to the textures in the background from the very first, as Picasso begins to play with delineation, tone, shadow, and texture. Perhaps no other medium rewards a viewer to such a degree for close-in, nose-to-glass inspection. The curvilinear designs and cross-hatching are full of energy and intention.
Peintre et le Modèle Tricotant (etching, 1927; Illustration for Honoré de Balzac, Le Chef-d'œuvre Inconnu, Paris: Vollard, 1931) is one of thirteen etchings from a luxury edition of Balzac's The Unknown Masterpiece (1831), commissioned by Ambroise Vollard.
Picasso repeats this 'subject-artist-studio' combination in a further volume of one hundred etchings called the Vollard Suite. The Suite includes Sculpteur et son modèle devant une fenêtre, Sculpteur, modèle et buste sculpté, Jeune sculpteur au travail (etchings, 1933), which are all examples of Picasso's impeccable line work and ability with the technique.
Another theme in the Vollard Suite is the Minotaur, who expresses both tragedy and terror, like a Frankenstein story. Minotaure aveugle guidé par une fillette dans la nuit (aquatint worked with scraper to resemble mezzotint, drypoint & engraving, 1934) depicts a blind and vulnerable Minotaur who relies on a little girl. But then Minotaure attaquant une amazone (etchings, 1933) depicts an attack. Picasso uses two different printing methods to reinforce this tonal duality.
Also from the Vollard Suite, Femme Torero, II (etching, 1934) presents a female bullfighter, caught in a battle between her horse and a wounded bull; the patterned and delicate line-work belie the violent narrative.
Vollard further asks Picasso for a set of animal prints for a special edition of Histoire Naturelle (Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, 1707-88), which includes Le Lézard and Les Grenouilles (sugar aquatint, scraper & drypoint, 1936). Sugar aquatint involves brushing a sugar solution onto a printing plate, resulting in a more painterly result than etching allowed.
This section concludes with Tête de femme, no 7. Portrait de Dora Maar (drypoint, 1939), a portrait of the photographer and artist Dora Maar. This introduces color to the show; its production requires four plates, one for each color (pink, blue, brown and black), utilizing abrasive paper with the drypoint technique.
Picasso Printmaker – Lithographs 1945-54
After the war, Picasso returns to lithography, but the works are more complex and layered. With lithography, Picasso can iterate, rework, and visualize an idea through a series of 'states'. For example, David et Bathsheba (2nd state, lithograph, 1947) is one of ten prints from 1947-49 and is based on David und Bathsheba (note the reverse image; 1526) by German Renaissance artist Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553).
We can see the iterative effect in the changes between Les Deux Femmes Nues (13th & 18th states, lithographs, 1946). These are two of at least eighteen variations made between November 1945 and February 1946, in which the two figures become increasingly abstract; only this final state has the birds and bugs in the margins.
The last lithograph is this section, Jardins à Vallauris (crayon lithograph, 1953) is a maze-like landscape of fountains, trees, and pavilions. The curator's statement from the label reveals its bittersweet message:
This lithograph depicts gardens in Vallauris, the town near Antibes where Picasso lived with Françoise Gilot. Living in the South of France brought Picasso closer to his Spanish roots and to the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean that continued to inspire him. He refused to return to Spain while General Franco was in power. Dying two years before Franco, Picasso never saw democracy restored to his home country.
Picasso Printmaker – Linocuts 1955-64
As we make the U-turn at the far-end of the timeline panel, the show hits a highpoint with Picasso's linocuts. In the 1950's, Picasso is working with Madoura Pottery producing earthenware chargers and vases. These skills, cutting and forming surfaces, add to his printmaking and allows him to achieve a level of technical sophistication.
He creates Nature Morte sous la Lampe (1st, 3rd, 4th & 5th states, definitive form, colour linocut, 1962), a reduction linocut, in which a single plate is progressively cut and printed to build the colored layers; thus, each step is destructive and irreversible.
Pique II (colour linocut, 1959) echoes the spiraling dynamism of Femme Torero, II – the horse, the bull, the rider, and the lance. And the earth-tones echo the colors of the bullring.
There are two versions of Deux femmes au réveil (linocut, 1959 and 1964). The first printing uses a similar coffee-colored palette to Pique II, with the bright, creamy strokes reflecting the morning light. The second is a rinsed linocut print: using the same block, greasy white ink is used first, then rinsed with water-based Indian ink. The result is a scene that seems to show the night rather than the morning.
Portrait de Jacqueline accoudée, au collier (colour linocut, 1959) shows Picasso's second wife, Jacqueline Roque; it energetically expresses and continues his interest in primitive art and cubist dimensionality.
Picasso Printmaker – Final Years 1968-71
By 1968, Picasso is eighty-six years old, but still incredibly productive. From March to October, he carries out the '347 Suite', a wide-ranging collection of 347 copperplate etchings with no connective theme or subject other than 'they're Picasso's'.
The Suite opens with Picasso, Son Oeuvre, et Son Public (etching, 1968), which includes a self-portrait as he looks upon 'his work', a picture of a horse and rider, as the eyes of 'his audience' peer from the darkness.
In May, he comes back to Balzac's story of the Chef-d'œuvre Inconnu with Autour du 'Chef d'oeuvre Inconnu': Peintre, Modèle, Couple et Deux Peintres (etching, drypoint & scraper, 1968). Here, the audience watches as the old artist destroys his painting with a crazy scribble of black; enigmatically, an owl sits on the easel.
Maison close. Bavardages, avec perroquet, Célestine, et le portrait de Degas (etching, April 1971) is from the '156 Series' (1970-72). It depicts Celestina, the matron of a brothel along with several of her workers. A portrait of French artist Edgar Degas (1834-1917) hangs on the wall, while a parrot sits among them. The faces of the ladies are a balanced pattern of lines and dots; the central portrait is another primitive mask, while Celestina looks on like an evil nun.
The final wall features ten more prints from the '347 Suite' (1968) that offer a sampler of styles and stories. The three in the center are variants from the same plate and printing session on May 15th; there are numbered I, III, and IV (reverse text).
The piece at the far right of the middle row is from August 15th and shows a tree with figures dashing towards a church. Picasso has smeared it with grease, and it looks like a finger painting – the tree animated by the chaos of the rushing bodies and the movement of the artist's hand.
An excellent catalog written by the curator, Catherine Daunt, accompanies this astonishing exhibit.
After a pause at the Court Café, we walk to Waterloo Bridge. On the way, a few intriguing sites:
- the bell tower of St George's Church (Nicholas Hawksmoor, 18th century)
- Freemason's Hall (1927-33)
- the curing buildings along Aldwych
- Novello Theater (W. G. R. Sprague, 1905)
- St Mary le Strand (James Gibbs, 18th century)
- London Eye (Marks Barfield, 200)
- St Paul's Cathedral (Christopher Wren, 1675-1710)
On the South Bank, we enter the Royal National Theater (Denys Lasdun, 1976). By now the sun is setting, and the thin crescent Moon and Venus are in the western sky.
In the dimming light, the Millennium Bridge (2000) cuts a bright streak towards St Paul's, while the Southwark Bridge (20th century) is lit in orange and pink.
We stop at the The Golden Hinde on our way to Borough Market for dinner.
We realize that today is a variation of yesterday, in the spirit of Picasso's serialized prints: Bermondsey Market to Portobello Market, the Tate Modern to The British Museum. And we finish the day as we did yesterday and even the day before, looking up at The Shard Lights (2012; The Shard, Renzo Piano, 2013) over the crossing tower of Southwark Cathedral (12th to 19th centuries).
Maybe the trick is to see every day as new, and distinguish the details that makes them different – be open to the rewards from paying attention and being curious.
in addition to this Tour, a longer 'Curator's Introduction' is available here
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