ART-ITALY: Romance between Italy’s Left and Picasso

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jorge Pina

ROME, Dec 15 1998 (IPS) - Pablo Picasso’s romance with the Italian left began when he painted “Guernica” – the work that depicted the bombing of the Basque city by fascist forces during the Spanish civil war.

It still continues and now an exhibiton of paintings, drawings and photographs devoted to the Spanish painter opened this week in Rome.

The Italian painter Renato Guttuso – a Communist like Picasso – swore having received in 1938 a card with a reproduction of “Guernica”, which he carried in his wallet like a sacred image until it was destroyed. That story is told by Bruno Mantura, one of the organizers of the exhibition, “Picasso, 1937-1953 – the Apogee Years in Italy”, at tghe Rome Gallery of Modern Art.

This is the third exhibition to be devoted to Picasso in Italy after the Picasso wing at the Venice Biennial in 1948, and the show at the National Gallery of Modern Art which later transferred to the Royal Palace in Milan.

It is also considered a continuation of “Picasso 1917-1924. The Italy Trip”, which was exhibited last year in the Palacio Grassi of Venice, the cultural foundation of the Fiat company.

The love affair between the left in Italy and Picasso came imnto flower at the private hall at the Venice Biennial in 1948, the first to be held after 20 years of Fascism. On that occasion, 22 paintings from private collections in Zurich and Paris were presented.

Back then, the inaugurating speech was delivered by Lionello Venturi, one of the 12 art professors who had refused to pledge their support to the fascist government that came to power in the 1930’s. During that time the works of Picasso – who was born in Malaga, Spain in 1881 and died in France in 1973 – had been banned from any solo exhibition.

In 1944, Picasso joined the Communist Party of France and was attracted by the idea of the “new brotherhood” represented by the Communist International and the peace movement, said Sandra Pinto, a member of the team that organized the exhibit.

In that context, Italian intellectuals and artists of the left – in particular Communists – traveled to meet Picasso and have their picture taken with him, returning to Italy happy, showing off his autograph or some small gift from the “maestro”.

In 1953, with the start of the Cold War, there was a great division between Italian figurative and abstract artists and the Rome exhibition is an attempt to “interpret historically the moment of the greatest influence Picasso had on Italian intellectuals, and also his extraordinary creative moment.”

“I feel proud when I say that I have never considered painting an entertainment art”, said Picasso in 1944 in an interview in the French Communist newspaper L’Humanite.

The painter liked the unpredictable. A coincidence led to his painting of the “Peace Dove”, which since 1949 has been recognized by millions of people. A live dove had been given to him as a present from Matisse, and Picasso reproduced it in a lithograph.

Picasso’s dove became the emblem of the World Peace Conference held in Paris that year, and from then on it has “flown” continuously throughout the world.

The Rome exhibition combines paintings, drawings and photographs. A total of 68 works are on display – many shown here in 1953 chosen by Picasso himself.

The centerpieces of the exhibit, pillars of the beginning and conclusions of Picasso’s influence in Italy, are the two major historical and allegorical themes dealt with by the artist in the period in question.

These are the 1937 studies for “Guernica” – among them the “Head of Crying Women with Handkerchief”, which comes from the Queen Sofia National Museum in Madrid, and “Massacre in Korea”, of 1951.

The crying woman is Dora Maar, his young companion, who the painter frequently mistreated and who became in that painting the incarnation of the tragedy and horror war.

In addition to the preparatory drawings for “Guernica”, there is a large drawing of the “Minotaur”, of 1937, and several portraits of Picasso’s friends.