Mother and Child, 1971

     Maternity is a theme that reappeared often and strongly in Picasso’s work.  At the end of his life, at ninety, Picasso tried a new way of painting: figures were summarily sketched out, ‘dropping’ with rapid and obvious brushstrokes.  More colours suddenly appeared on his canvas.  This unfinished quality, seemingly born of negligence, was in reality the sign of a new vitality.  The search, always beginning anew with Picasso, bore witness to a greater freedom in painting.

Mother and Child, 1971

       In 1973 Picasso was ninety-one.  Rooted in him as strongly as ever was the wish to provoke emotion, to cast light into obscure places using colour, form, image, symbol.  He still had an unshakeable faith in his power to create and to give the best and most accurate form to what was to be expressed.  This tremendous vital power is what made his death seem so sudden.  Picasso died on 8 April 1973.  The world was shocked.  He had led people to believe he had held within him a light that could never be extinguished.  As he often said, ‘Paintings are never finished….  They usually stop when the time comes because something happens that interrupts them.’

Back to home