Pablo Picasso: Academic and Anti-Academic (1895-1900)

April 25, 1996 - June 15, 1996

Yoshii Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition of paintings and drawings by Pablo Picasso.  “Pablo Picasso: Academic and Anti-Academic (1895-1900),” curated by Picasso scholar and author Josep Palau i Fabre, will comprise approximately twenty paintings and drawings completed in Spain during the artist’s formative years.  This exhibition, made possible by the generous assistance of Maya Picasso and various other collectors, will include important works such as Sketch for Science and Charity (1897), that have rarely, if ever, been exhibited in the United States.

Picasso’s arrival in Barcelona signifies an important stage in his life.  Barcelona was the first modern city in which the artist lived.  And coincidentally, the invention of electricity was drastically altering the pace of people’s lives.  In school, Picasso was introduced to new trends in painting by his classmates, words and movements such as Modernism and Impressionism.  Picasso’s curious nature and his growth and maturity as an artist reflects the rapid development of the flourishing surrounding culture.

This exhibition will examine the confrontation between Picasso’s strictly academic training and the vibrant Spanish culture in which he found himself enmeshed.  The exhibition exemplifies how the artist’s originality of thought, inventiveness, and mastery of stroke were already evident during his adolescent years.

The exhibition will demonstrate that Picasso was, at an early age, prior to the influences and experience of Paris, essentially the same master of later years.  We are able to see his genius and individuality in his adolescent work.  The attentive viewer will discern the nascent qualities in this work that eventually revolutionized art of the twentieth century.  This exhibition will offer an excellent opportunity to examine the artist on the threshold of his great career.