Curator's introduction: Picasso Ingres: Face to Face

Useful lecture at the National Gallery looking at the current exhibition pairing portraits by Ingres and Picasso.

I had seen the show a couple of weeks earlier. It brought together Picasso’s “Woman with a Book” from 1932 with Ingres’ “Madame Moitessier” from 1856 which it was inspired by. This is the first time they have been seen together.

Curator of the show, Christopher Riopelle, gave us a whistle stop guide to the career of Ingres, pointing out works which related to the Madame Moitessier picture and talked us through the long process of making the work itself which was painted over a period of 12 years during which time plans to include a daughter who’d grown up were dropped and the design of the dress changed as fashions changed.

He then talked us through the Picasso picture of his mistress Marie-Therese Walter and it’s deliberate links to the Ingres work which he had seen in 1921 and which was for sale in 1936 when he first exhibited the portrait.

I did pop back and take another look at the two works after the lecture as it a real on in the lecture theatre! My first there for a long time!

 

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