Witty Picasso

In April I had a chance to see the huge Picasso retrospective at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. There was a lot to look at--I avoided museum burnout by concentrating on the found object assemblages. There were only a dozen or so. We were lucky to have guest passes, so I didn't feel obliged to look 3x at everything to justify the high cost of admission.

There was a narrow room set up as a photo gallery. Unfortunately it was so crowded (on a Monday yet) that we didn't spend much time there, but seeing photos of old Pablo hanging around in his nautical t-shirt doing South of France things gave me a little boost.

 Here he is with his good friend Jean Cocteau. From left to right: Pablo Picasso, his son Paulo, Jean Cocteau, Georges Braque and Françoise Gilot, in front of Picasso’s studio, Vallauris, 1953

The Picasso quotes scattered around the museum were a nice touch. Here are a few of my favorites---  

Give me a museum and I'll fill it.

My mother said to me, "If you become a soldier you'll be a general; if you become a monk you'll end up as the Pope." Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso. 

When I haven't any blue I use red. 

It is a well-known fact that we see the faults in other's works more readily than we do in our own.

Unless your work gives you trouble, it is no good.