This year’s blockbuster winter of art and community celebrations continues at the National Gallery of Victoria with the world-premiere exhibition The Picasso Century.
Melbourne Winter Masterpieces opens today, welcoming Victorians, interstate visitors, and international visitors.
“An extraordinary international collaboration, this exhibition has been developed for Melbourne and presents Picasso’s work, alongside many other famous artists and thinkers, like never before,” Victorian Minister for Creative Industries Danny Pearson said.
“We’re excited to bring this latest world-premiere Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition to the NGV as part of our blockbuster season of art. It’s a treat for local art lovers and a massive drawcard for visitors this winter,” Minister Pearson said.
An exclusive presentation of this exhibition is brought to Melbourne by the National Gallery of Victoria in partnership with two iconic French institutions, the Center Pompidou and the Musée national Picasso-Paris.
Taking a big picture approach, The Picasso Century explores Picasso’s work through his personal and artistic connections with respected artists, poets, and intellectuals. It offers an in-depth look at one of the 20th century’s most influential and celebrated artists, and the people he worked with.
In this exhibition, more than 80 Picasso works showcase his legacy and relevance to pivotal art movements like cubism and surrealism. Picasso’s works and artefacts will be shown alongside 100 pieces related to his contemporaries, including Salvador Dalí, Dora Maar, Georges Braque, Alberto Giacometti, Henri Matisse and Gertrude Stein.
“This exhibition offers visitors an extraordinary insight into the development of modern art and the pre-eminent figure at its centre, Pablo Picasso,” NGV director Tony Ellwood said.
Additionally, the exhibition includes works by artists like Natalia Goncharova, Julio González, Wifredo Lam, Suzanne Valadon, and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, who have rarely been exhibited in Australia.
Families and budding art lovers can join in the fun with a free NGV Kids exhibition Making Art: Imagine everything is real featuring hands-on collage and art-making activities and multimedia experiences.
“The Picasso Century offers an original, broad approach that allows us to grasp the artist’s career in his artistic and cultural context, from his formative years to his posterity,” Musée national Picasso-Paris President Cécile Debray said.
With the Picasso Century, the Victorian Government brings major international art exhibitions to Melbourne exclusively as part of its Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series. The exhibition will be presented along with Light: Works from Tate’s Collection, which opens next week at ACMI.
Melbourne Winter Masterpieces has been presenting blockbuster exhibitions from galleries like the Guggenheim and MoMA since 2004, giving art fans the opportunity to see works by masters such as Degas and Monet up close.
The Picasso Century opens to the public from 10 June to 9 October. For tickets and program details visit ngv.vic.gov.au. Patrons who spend $40 or more on tickets before the end of June may be eligible to claim a 25 per cent rebate through the Victorian Entertainment Program.
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