Picasso and His Muses: The Man and His Art
ART10-5b-Mon1
Carol Salus
This course will take place virtually on Zoom. Participation requires a device (ideally a computer or tablet, rather than a cell phone) with a camera and microphone in good working order and basic familiarity with using Zoom and accessing email.
April 21 - May 19
Picasso needed a female partner in order to flourish. His art is like a diary and each key woman is marked in his work. We will concentrate our study on these select figures as they appear in portraits and genre scenes. Fernande Olivier provides an insight into his early years and travels with him to Gósol where we see the beginnings of cubism. Eva Gouel appears in Picasso’s work as he expresses his love for her in the form of guitars whose shape echoes that of his muse. Picasso’s portraits for his first wife, Olga Kokhlova, move from delicate to anxiety-ridden as he struggles to cope with her mental deterioration. We see his boldness as the 46- year-old artist confronts on a Paris street 17- year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter and asks to paint her portrait. She becomes a source of eroticism for his art while simultaneously Dora Maar engages him romantically and intellectually as seen in his depictions. His ten-year partnership with Françoise Gilot leads to sculpture made from found objects and ceramics; while it highlights his search for youth. Lastly, Jacqueline Roque, 45 years his junior, becomes his second wife. She provides him with a quiet work environment in which to create into his ninth decade.
Picasso’s art is autobiographical. His passion for his muses changed in palette and form as the women entered and departed his life. In this course we will see these beautiful women set fire to his deepest emotions and greatest works.
More lecture than facilitated discussion.
Picasso by Timothy Hilton
The SGL will post all other materials online as pdfs
1 ½ to 2 hours. Chapters are 20 to 30 pages
Carol Salus is Professor Emerita at Kent State University where she taught in the Art History Department. She received her B.A from Carnegie-Mellon as well as her MS from Syracuse, her MA from the University of Cincinnati and her PhD from Ohio State. Her book titled Picasso’s Vision of Celestina: The Artist and the Procuress is a study of Picasso’s response to a Spanish literary masterpiece. She has co-edited an anthology about American artists who studied overseas titled Out of Context: American Artists Abroad. She has also published scholarly articles on Matisse, Degas, Warhol, Lichtenstein, and others.