Picasso magic

Picasso: The Mediterranean Years (1945–61)
Gagosian Gallery, 6–24 Britannia Street, WC1, until 28 August

The Gagosian Gallery has been remodelled for this exhibition by the architect Annabelle Selldorf, who has translated the normally looming white spaces into a succession of more sympathetic but nonetheless dramatic rooms. The expectant visitor enters via a black door to be confronted by a large but standard earthenware vase that Picasso has transformed by painting it with a brief yellow bikini. Vase becomes woman, as Picasso reinvigorates the old cliché of womanly hips looking like a vase, and effortlessly renews the metaphor. The humour and playfulness that characterise his work are at once in evidence, and the profound preoccupation with the human figure. Picasso’s magic grips from the start.

On the opposite wall in this corridor space is the tremendous series of bull lithographs from 1945 that follows a gradual and inexorable process of stripping back from realism to the spare outlines of cave painting, from volumetric wash to pure line in 11 brilliantly inventive stages, each one a masterly reworking of the essence of bull. These should be read from left to right; at the extreme left is a swirly brown linocut entitled ‘Picador et taureau’ (1959), affectionately inscribed to John Richardson, the great Picasso biographer and the curator (with the artist’s grandson, Bernard) of this marvellous and enthralling display. Richardson’s touch is everywhere apparent, in the subtle yet informative nature of the juxtapositions, and in the choice of specific pieces as well as in the show’s overarching design. A pleasure to visit, the exhibition is also a stimulus to look again at Picasso, at his sometimes bewildering range of themes, styles and techniques.

If the visitor keeps to the right after the bull lithographs, the small end room of predominantly drawings and graphics will serve as a gradual induction to the richness of this collection.