OBSESSING OVER LUNCH

OBSESSING OVER LUNCH

Allen Jones was not the first artist to put his personal spin on Manet nor will he be the last. Claude Monet, James Tissot, Paul Cezanne, all responded in their personal styles and created paintings which enriched the artistic canon. However, for one artist it became an obsession. Picasso wrestled with Manet's "Dejeuner" for almost 20 years. He attempted to exorcize the painting in the same way he chose to exorcize the women in his life: by painting them. Between 1954 and 1970, he would return to "Le Dejeuner" and attack it as a way of nourishing his own creativity. Twenty-six paintings, 150 drawings, and five pieces of sculpture later, the legacy of "Le Dejeuner" is a series of works imprinted with the great sweep of Picasso's genius. Part of the blockbuster "Picasso et les Maitres" show opening in Paris on the 8th of October, will be a special exhibition in the Musee D'Orsay "Picasso/Manet, Le Dejeuner sur L'Herbe," a collection of around 40 of the paintings, drawings, prints and maquettes created by Picasso after Manet's masterpiece. The exhibit will reunite fourteen of the twenty-six Dejeuner paintings which Picasso completed.



Images: Luncheon on the Grass after Manet ( and Bathers, a study of Luncheon), Mougins, August 1961- May, 1970.