This week: On Gaito Gazdanov, Pablo Picasso, Richard Wagner & more.
Art:
“Picasso: Seven Decades of Drawing,” at Acquavella Galleries, New York (through December 3): The shapeshifting Pablo Picasso was never more shifty than in his drawings. A significant exhibition of “Seven Decades of Drawing,” curated by Olivier Berggruen, is now on view at Acquavella. From cartoon-like lines to sculpture-like forms, Picasso’s style varied as much as his media, which might include charcoal, crayon, pencil, collage, ink, pastel, watercolor, or just about whatever else he could get his hands on. Across eighty works, including loans from eight major museums, this exhibition reveals an artist who could be widely inventive and protean as he remained, distinctively, Picasso. For more on the priapic Andalusian, look for Karen Wilkin’s review of John Richardson’s Life of Picasso IV: The Minotaur Years, 1933–1943 in the November issue of the magazine.
—JP
