Musee Picasso Paris Reopens
after an extensive 5 year renovation

As visitors make their way through the museum they see Picasso's periods in rough chronology, beginning with his blue period through the Cubist and Surrealist phases and on to his late re-interpretations of master painters.

Below is our Newsletter article from June, 2011 when a portion of the Paris Picasso Collection delighted thousands of art lovers when it visited San Francisco's de Young Museum.

"Picasso!" ... far more than a name, more like a force of nature. His extraordinary gifted talent expanded established norms, leaving in his wake a stunningly stylized body of work in whatever artistic medium he chose.

His greatest contribution was as co-founder of Cubism along with Georges Braque, where parts of objects or models were analyzed and then reassembled in an abstracted form, using a multitude of viewpoints, placing the subject into a greater context.

Through effective use of intersecting surfaces, random angles and the loss of depth, Picasso could reveal energies within his subject which could reach beyond normal paths of perception and speak directly to the sub-conscious, beautifully reinventing accepted ideas of shape, color, and design.

The de Young's exhibition dips into each loosely defined period of Picasso's career, allowing us to analyze and abstract the characteristics of each.

Then, the exhibit challenges us to reassemble the parts of his career into a cohesive whole, much like the creative process Picasso used creating one of his cubist paintings.

This exhibition features over 100 masterpieces from the permanent collection of the Musee National Picasso including paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints from his long and fabled career. The overlapping periods of his career include The Blue Period (1901-1904), the Rose Period (1904-1906), the Expressionist Period, also known as his African Period (1907-1909), Cubism 1909-1916), Neoclassicism (1917-1925) and Surrealism (1925-1930's).

Picasso (1881 - 1973) achieved success in a wide variety of styles in both painting and sculpture. From early in his childhood in the 1880's in the city of Málaga in the Andalusian region of Spain until his passing in Mougins in the South of France in 1973, his genius seamlessly exhibited an openness to experiment with a variety of theories, styles, techniques and ideas. Modern scholars divide the styles of his career into periods, all in an effort to grasp and understand his magic.

His neoclassical works contained images of centaurs, minotaurs, nymphs, and fauns inspired by the classical world of Italy. His famed Guernica borrowed classical themes from his neoclassical period and merged them with analytic cubism. Guernica is a large canvas, perhaps Picasso's most famed painting, warning of the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war.

In the middle of the 1920's, Picasso was working with Surrealists (1925-1930's) , although he never liked being labeled as one. But appealing to Picasso was Surrealism's challenge of dealing with physical and psychological states through exaggerated use of imaginary form and distorted perspective.

The whole of Picasso's career is far greater than the confines of one period. These periodic divisions only an aid in understanding the entirety of his artistic life. Throughout he worked in a variety of styles, often merging influences and languages of style in later works. He was prolific, avant-guarde, and individualistic, an artist for the ages.

So make plans now to visit the de Young and enjoy this grand opportunity. The de Young offers you the rare opportunity to view masterpieces from each of his artistic periods, abstract from each a portion of his genius, and reassemble them into your own appreciation of Picasso.

The artistry in Geoffrey's paintings reflect an inner beauty found throughout his many artistic endeavors. He has provided a wide body of work, a banquet through the spoken word, through acting, dance, design and painting, and it is all Geoffrey Holder.

All his life, Geoffrey has been a painter. Born in 1930, Geoffrey credits his love of painting from watching his older brother Boscoe, who has since become a successful artist in Great Britain. Young Geoffrey imitated his brother as they both drew inspiration from their Caribbean heritage and surroundings.

In 1952, Geoffrey was given a huge opportunity thanks to his incredible dancing talents. Choreographer Agnes de Mille saw Holder dance on the island of St. Thomas and

invited Geoffrey to New York where he studied at the Katherine Dunham School of Dance. He became a principal dancer of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York for 1955 and 1956. He also met and married dancer Carmen de Lavallade who was a cast mate in Truman Capote's 1954 Caribbean musical, House of Flowers.

But even with all of this going on in his dancing, directing and acting careers, he says he always painted and it has been how he has always made his living, with his work receiving high praise in exhibitions and inclusion in notable collections.

Critics note that nearly everything in Geoffrey's painting has notes of influence from his native Trinidad. They have an unmistakable tropical palette, vibrant colors providing pleasing harmonies. His colors seem to dance as they tell the stories of his homeland. Technically he has moved from oils to a combination of oil, wax, and grease-based pencils and sticks to achieve a variety of eye-pleasing effects.

His painting at times shows an influence of the post impressionists, such as his Lena (above) which is in part an homage to the portrait style of Amadeo Modigliani. And not far beneath Geoffrey's surface are inspirations of Paul Gauguin. Geoffrey visits Paris annually, and has painted there extensively, recharging his creative batteries.

Peter Ellenshaw had just moved to California from his native England having worked there on all four of Disney's early live action costume dramas including Treasure Island and The Sword and the Rose. The studio was a beehive of activity with multiple projects in progress, including Disneyland (for which Peter painted an aerial view of the yet to be completed park shown on the ABC television show, also called 'Disneyland,' hosted by Walt himself).